It’s Saturday morning after a big Friday night party. We’d gone to the party with my girl Carolyn’s older sister. The only way we younglings got admittance was if we drove her sister to Vermont to buy the booze (the drinking/buying age was 18 there at the time). We also had to drive her to the party and then drive all the drunk@sses home. The party was so out of hand though that we never even broke out the beer and liquor we’d gone to so much trouble to procure -there were five kegs in the basement. There were also a buncha drunk people to drive home, but I hadn’t had anything to drink myself. That’s why I was the first one up the next morning.

   I’ve gotta pick everybody up for a day at the beach. We’re driving from Nashua, NH (basically just a Boston suburb on the border) to Plum Island on the shore. It’s me and my girl Carolyn and a coupla my friends and Their girlfriends. There’s six of us, but there’s plenty of room in The Mule for everybody and all our beach gear. We’d gotten a late start, but we finally got everybody picked-up, got the car gassed-up, and got the picnic coolers topped-off with ice. We’re headed out to the highway. Got nothin’ t’lose at all. Gonna do it our way. Take a chance before –yadda, yadda, yadda.

   It’s like a half-hour drive, but when we get there it’s obviously gonna be a long wait. There’s literally a mile-long line of cars to get in. It’s some kind of National Park and there’s a one lane access road that runs past a guard shack where you have to pay an entrance fee. The park rangers seem to be taking their time ‘cause it takes us half an hour to travel half a mile. You can Walk faster than that. So my friends pile out of the hot car and smoke a coupla cigarettes by the side of the road. Then they’re throwing a Frisbee around. It’s superslow stop-and-go traffic, so they’re occasionally getting in and out of the car. Carolyn takes a turn at the wheel while I knock road-pebbles into the woods with a sawed-off baseball bat. Her friend Jen is sitting on the hood drinking a coke while we idle up 10 feet, then another 10 feet, then another 10 feet. It’s all taking way too long and we’re super-restless, but whatever. We’re stuck. Eventually we near the front of the line, so everybody piles back into the car and we’re There. Finally.