As we boarded the bus that early June morning in 1987, Cathy
couldn’t wait to tell us about the flyers. She broached the subject by saying
something like, “I can’t believe that you gave Jay permission to have a party
at your house while we’re in Europe.”
What? A party at our
house? No way! We’ve given him strict orders NOT to have a party of any kind
while we’re gone!
Cathy then informed us of the flyers. I wish I had a copy.
She said that they were plastered all over Pensacola, especially on the junior
college campus and the university campus.
You see, Jay had a rock band, and if anyone heard that they were playing
at our house, they magically showed up. Thus began another trip to Europe with
high school students.
During our years as sponsors and then as administrators of
the trips with a wonderful company called Travel Selections, we had so many
adventures – some lots of fun and some not so good. We traveled with students
on and off for about twelve years, and I must admit that most of the trips were
just fine, with my husband, the other sponsors, and the kids learning lots
about Europe. What about me? Most of the time I was trying to make sure that
the kids were listening to our guides or staying awake during tours or
remaining in their rooms after “lights out” and not being the “ugly American.”
During our years of sponsoring, we had lots of students who
were very special, ones whom we thoroughly enjoyed, but none were so special as
Cathy Parsons. I had taught her brother several years earlier, and she was in
my English class the year that she went to Europe with us. I’m sure that the
trip was a graduation present.
Actually, I need to say that Cathy was very special to me
even before we left for Europe and she made her Jay announcement. She was a
delight in class, so funny but so determined to please her teacher. One example
of her sense of humor almost made me burst into tears. She walked into class
one day a couple of months before we were to leave for Europe and announced
that she had decided not to go with us. Say
it isn’t so, Cathy!
A couple of minutes later, she shouted, “April fool’s!” Yes,
exactly twenty-eight years ago today, she got me with the most disturbing April
fool’s joke I ever had played on me. But I got even . . . that year when we could have the school resource
officer “arrest” someone, I pulled one on her. Off she went in handcuffs. I
honestly can’t remember where students were taken, but it was a funny joke, at
least for the one ordering the arrest. Well, she got me back twenty-eight years
later. Today, she posted a photo of me that she took while we were traveling.
This must be one of the ugliest photos of me ever . . . not only the bent nose,
but also the awful hair. Touché, dear Cathy!
Somewhere before we arrived in Switzerland while we were traveling in
1987, we stopped for gas, and because the driver didn’t replace the gas cap,
the diesel fuel leaked into the luggage compartment. And whose luggage should
be right at the place to receive most of the gas? That’s right . . . Cathy’s.
Poor Cathy. Almost everything in her suitcase was ruined. Because of the
accident, Frank dubbed her Miss Dee-zel (diesel), and she still has that name
for us. She was very much fragrant until we went with her to shop for new
clothes in Switzerland. Other students hung out with their teen-aged friends,
but not Cathy. She was with us for the whole trip, and we loved having her hang
out with us. The three of us were BFFs before the term was even coined!
But what about the concert in our home while we were gone? On our last
day in England, the phone rang in our hotel room. I answered, and the
conversation went something like this: “Hi, Mom! Is Dad there?” I knew in my
tender mother’s heart that something was wrong with my boy.
I could hear the conversation from Frank’s side. It consisted mainly
of one-syllable words and grunts. When he hung up, he told me that Jay had
confessed to having a gathering at our house. What he was concerned about was
that a screen door got damaged while the kids were there. Frank told him that
he would have to pay for it. What he didn’t tell him was that the door was
already damaged. Paying for a door was slight punishment for going against our
rules.
We found out after we got home that there had been at least 500 young
people at our house that night, not all at one time, though. Our insurance
agent lived around the corner from us, and he walked the streets all night for
fear that someone would fall into the pool and sue us out the ying yang. We
knew the number of kids who were at our house that night because Jay collected
a dollar a head, and he deposited about $500 the next day. For years after that
night, we’d meet folks who said, when they found out who we were, “I think I
went to a party at your house one night. It was great!” I’ll just bet it was.
Whenever I think of that party, I think of Cathy because she’s the one
who told us about it, though we didn’t believe it at the time. And thinking of
her always brings a smile to my face. I smile about the party, too. My boy
surely did do some wild things during his short twenty-four years! Good
memories!
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