Band Rolling

I was not in the Godby High School band, but this is my band-related story in honor of Godby's late long-term band director for whom Godby's auditorium is named, Jeff Bradford. I last saw Jeff  Bradford at the Association of Godby Graduates' sixth annual Hall of Fame banquet on March 19, 2010, and he passed away a few hours after my father did, one year ago on September 19, 2010.

In Spring 1981, Mike and I acquired a case of 48 industrial strength rolls of toilet paper. Mike and I worked at Mr. G's Pizza and almost always closed together on Friday and Saturday evenings. Arlene and Mike and I were the "G Musketeers," often at Mr. G's together and after work, and we each had put a Mr. G's Pizza license plate on the front of our cars. Mike and I decided to stir up trouble with our box of toilet paper and the occasional fifty pounds of pizza dough that would be disposed of at the end of the business evening. We lived close together, less than a mile apart, and much of the Godby school district was between Mr. G's restaurant and our respective homes.

Mark is a good friend of Mike's and mine. I brought my Watermelon costume to his Halloween party in 1980. Mark's house was directly in front of a street light, which Mark regretted in advance of his Halloween party, because he preferred a darker, spookier party setting. Slightly reminiscent of Christmas Vacation, a mutual friend heard about Mark's wish and drove by late one evening with a .45 caliber pistol and took a few very loud shots at the street light, hitting it at least once. 1980s street lights responded oddly to that kind of damage, and in this case the light remained on for the next few weeks, even during the day, until it burned out. Mark's Halloween party began before it was completely dark outside, so it was actually lighter at Mark's house than usual, thanks to the effort to extinguish the street light for the party.

We left pizza dough on Mark's front doorstep late one evening. The fun thing about all that pizza dough is how much it rises by morning. We couldn't stop laughing when Mark told us that he stepped in it first thing the next day and it took him forever to clean his shoes.  Mark warned us against "doughing" him anymore, and Mike and I respected that.

That wasn't our only memorable visit to Mark's house. One night after work, Mike and I parked about a block away and walked quietly to Mark's house, where Mike and I proceeded to toilet paper his front yard. I began with the strip to the side of the driveway closest to the other yard and quickly ran out of yard to roll. Mike was in the front yard in front of Mark's front door. As I started walking around the side of the house to do the back yard as well, I heard the front door open and Mark yell out, "Hey! Stop!"

Mark ran into the front yard after Mike. Mike ran to his car. I rushed into Mark's back yard and rolled bushes and his picnic table, and then yelled Mark's name. As I heard Mark run into the back yard from one side of the house, I ran around the other side towards the front of his house, intending to flee down the road to my car and leave, but then I noticed that Mark had left his front door open, and realized that he was still looking for me in his back yard.

I ran into Mark's open front door and into his living room and toilet papered at least two sleeping guest family members on the floor and some furniture before quickly darting back outside and then to safety.

Mark was in the band and Mike and I became emboldened to do other band members' houses. We toilet papered more than one band member's house each evening on the next three weekends before we saw the others. On one night, we were fairly certain where one band member lived, but weren't entirely sure in which house Terrie lived, so we toilet papered four houses in a row, confident that we had done hers. Another time, we toilet papered a yard real well and then let a couple of toilet paper strands trail down the street to another band member's house, and the merriment began in earnest as others sought to get even with people they perceived to have toilet papered their own yards.

We noticed three separate carloads of vengeance seekers on our way home one night. We saw them pull up quietly to other band members' houses and toilet paper their yards, and we knew it was because of what we had done, because they didn't normally do it that frequently. It took several weeks for the other band members to discover it was us, which led me to start placing an air-filled ball on the back of the family couch by the window in the living room with the TV on before retiring for the evening to deter toilet papering classmates from visiting my house. They eventually got me on graduation night, because I came home too late to place the "head" against the window. My parents interrupted them so they didn't accomplish much. After that evening, many of us went our separate ways in life, but I still chuckle at the memories.