Thursday, October 10, 2013

ALL THE YOUNG DUDES

When I think of Forrest Hardwood, I think of back in 1973 when I was arranging entertainment for the Valentines Dance at Bedford Methodist Church. Forrest was the manager for the band "Aftermath", which featured Loren  on guitar, Sara  on Keyboards, and John on drums. I cant remember the bass player, because Aftermath seemed to always be looking for a bass player, they even let ME tryout one time for bass player. It didn’t take very long for them to see that I didn’t really know anything about playing the base, but they were pretty good sports about it.

Anyway, I made arrangements with Forrest for Aftermath to be the band at Fellowship Hall on February 14th 1973. Forrest pulled a contract out from under his shirt, and I signed it; One Hundred Dollars for a night of music at Bedford Methodist!

I only knew Forrest from our English Class where he was pretty good at torturing poor old Mrs.  Weathers. Mrs. Weathers was the blue haired relic tht tried to teach English to a bunch of 15 year old hoodlums. Forrest kept her in tears pretty much, and I figured if he was as good at managing a band as he was at being a horrible student, everything was going to be ok.

I met Forrest and Aftermath an hour early so they could get set up. Part of their pay also included Valentines Dinner in Fellowship Hall and after dinner, I followed them outside to “get ready” for the music.
I was shocked to find that “get ready”  meant that Forrest would pull a few pre-rolled joints from his shirt pocket and fire them up, right there on the steps in the back outside of Fellowship Hall, while the Methodist Youth Fellowship grades 7 through 12 waited for the band to take the stage.
I tried to protest.
Forrest, wearing a big floppy hippy hat and wearing Mott the Hoople sunglasses,  assured me  they couldn’t play without it, and that in fact it was in the contract, which he again produced from under his shirt, and showed me the line in Section 5, Part 3, which read:
3)Band gets a toke before the show.  


What could I do? 

1 comment:

Waterbaby said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I've never heard this one dad!