Senior Skip Day 1977 in the '48 Willies Jeep

Finally, the day we had long been waiting for had arrived: Senior Skip Day 1977! Let the PARTY begin! At that time, I had a 1948 red Willies Jeep, which seated two comfortably and had a covered storage area in back. I remember being with Bob McFarland, Dave Philyaw, and two others who I don't recall their names (sorry). The first mission was to get everyone past security, so we crammed the three people into box in the back of the Jeep — which I am sure was as comfortable as hell! Right! We drove past the parking lot monitor, Mr. Meadows, with a smile and a wave. Piece of cake! Mission accomplished!

The adventure begins!

Off we go to see what trouble we could get into. After consuming a significant number of brew-skis, and hell who knows what else, we ended up at Van Patten Woods. We all agreed that we needed to consume a few more beers, for medicinal purposes, as I am sure at that time we were lacking our daily sodium supplements intake. With the combination of beers and needing an adventure, we decided to go across the street and followed the road to a field. We commenced to boon dock.

We had that Jeep almost climbing trees, going through mud, doing donuts, and driving through whatever crossed our path. At that time "then there were three". I'm not sure what happened to the other two people ... we lost them! We figured they would turn up somewhere.

We came across what seemed like a mere watering hole about 15 ft across by about 20 ft wide. I recall saying "This won't be a problem to cross, another piece of cake!" We were fully fueled and the Jeep had about half a tank. We had no fear and had the beer goggles on. It's now or never, let's see what this Jeep can do, balls to the wall! Got the Jeep to about 40 mph, which seemed at the time like 80 (I think our gauges were out of cal, possibly due to the beer goggle factor). We bounced over limbs and ruts and finally plunged into the puddle. The wheels were spinning, slinging mud everywhere. Water had consumed the windshield and the wipers were on high. We were still moving, not quite at the speed of light, but, as I recall, at around 15 mph and we were losing momentum quickly. The water level was nearing the opening where the doors would normally go. What at the time seemed like a puddle turned quickly into a pond. Although the Jeep's speedometer said 25 mph, it ceased to move any further. I checked with my co-pilots and they concurred ... we were stopped. The engine fan was applying a fine water mist for your cooling pleasure. We were into about 4 feet of water and mud everywhere, the Jeep, us, anything within a 15-foot radius.

We shifted the gears back and forth to try to break the Jeep free, but no dice. Not gonna happen. So it was time to call in the reinforcements, Jerry's Towing. After about an hour, this large tow truck showed up. I remember the driver saying "how in the hell did you get way out there?". It took strategic planning and several cocktails, but we managed. The tow truck extended every last inch of cable to reach the half-submerged, mud-covered Jeep. We hooked up the tow hook and started the extracting process. The Jeep started to move, then it stopped moving, and the tow truck started to slip downward towards the Jeep. The tow truck started to fling mud, but had no traction. He had released the Jeep and now the tow truck was definitely stuck in its place. This is not a good thing!

Time to get the bigger guns out! So the driver called in for the Granddaddy tow truck, the kind they use on semi trucks. This monster tow truck showed up and first removed the original tow truck, and then — after grunting and moaning a bit — slowly extracted the Jeep from the bog. The mud covered, seaweed-dripping, water-logged Jeep was set free! We were out of beer and, after paying the towing bill, we were out of money too.

It was a hell of a Senior Skip Day, one that I will never forget, nor will my good friends Bob and Dave, who were most excellent co-pilots. I wonder whatever happened to the lost crew members?

Sorry to miss the 30th reunion. I hope everyone had a nice time.

One of your ‘77 classmates,

Todd