Partying in Clinton, IL in the early 1990’s was synonymous with the skateboarding “scene” there. We had a pretty tight crew and we were always looking to have some fun after a day working at the video store, skating, attending classes or just loafing around. My close friend and future college roommate Anthony had an apartment that we would frequent, and we had many, many good times there. He, along with his roommate Will [Bill of the year], had some raging parties, attracting the “who’s who” of the Clinton party scene.
I believe it was the summer of 1994 which held particularly good parties. I would be so bold as to call these parties legendary. All would attend, including folks that were well under the legal drinking age (as were we), but one little grommet stood out in that crowd, his name was Jason. Jason was a Wapella native, attending school with my future wife, and participating in our wedding as well as eventually marrying Anthonys sister. This eager young lad was nice enough to print up some “tickets” for the party, detailing the time, location and date of the “First annual, Schools Out beer bash” in his high school design class. Needless to say, the party never happened. Rumor got around that it was going to get busted (those rumors were perpetuated by a guy having a party on the same night), so it was called off, and no refunds were given for the tickets that were pre-sold.
These tickets have become somewhat of a thing of legend, but after some prodding, Jason was able to come up with a blurry, “bigfoot sighting” of one recently, and although this is a bit outside of the scope of the 1980’s Cold Locals scene, it certainly fits the bill as a bona fide Cold Locals event.
Thanks, Jason.