# Wet Fund-Raiser

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Posted by Wetnboy on December 26, 2020 at 04:21:13

I’ve previously shared how strict my parents were and what a disciplinarian my Dad was. Now most of the time in my childhood years I was in need of strong correction, but later on at age 13 was the worst spanking (more like getting the tar beat out of me) for simply being an emotionally distraught 13 year old that wasn’t handling things too well at the moment and walking home from school right after arriving one morning. For the rest of my teen years I didn’t get along with my Dad. We were at odds on everything, some of which came from disagreeing with a lot of the BS coming at me in Youth Group from our denominational church. Don’t get me wrong I loved youth group and had more fun there than anywhere partly as my parents wouldn’t let me go other places and I met lifelong friends there. We were also exposed to a lot of biased things like prejudices, twisting scripture to their ‘liking’, teaching us that we needed to live to their standards to measure up and placing major guilt-trips on us when we didn’t. I was reading the bible on my own and challenging things. Hey, they’re the ones that taught us to read it for yourself and to not accept everything you hear from the pulpit or anyone unless it lines up with the word of God, but then didn’t like it when that’s exactly what I actually did. Like when my Dad yelled at my sister for ‘talking’ with a ‘black’ (guy) who was a friend and he did so very rudely where that friend could hear it too. Whoa, show me that somewhere in the black and white and red letters, please.
A quick back-story and look at things in the mid-1970’s. Racial prejudice was prevalent in the area and most neighborhoods in town seemed to be segregated by race. The churches were too, and most were against inter-racial dating and marriage. We had a very bold ‘token’ black family that attended our church with 5 kids; the oldest was a wonderful and funny girl named Annie who was my age. Annie didn’t care about race and neither did most of us teens, but she was ‘aware’ that people in church looked differently at her family and she liked to push it right back at them – in fact in there face if she could. I had a great friendship with her unbeknownst to my parents, who would have disapproved. By senior year of high school Annie and I were the only two seniors (12th graders) in a youth group of 35 to 40 teens. We’re both the first child in our families which meant we were the trail breakers for the younger ones and consequently more than anything we were two teens that liked to speak up and challenge peoples thinking. That year we both attended a teen prayer breakfast at church early one morning a week before school and we enjoyed hanging out. Often I’d give Annie a ride to home (oh, my) after a Sunday night church service which we both attended (mostly to get out of the house and hang w/friends by going out afterward), while our parents stayed home to ‘get ready for the week’ which was an excuse really, but one we gladly accepted to have time away from them. It was one of those cold winter Sunday evenings I’ll NEVER forget as most of the ‘gang’ had reasons they couldn’t go out after church leaving just me and Annie, who also needed a ride home. We decided to stop at Taco Bell and walked in talking and carrying on having fun – she was really a fun person to be with. As we finished eating and were talking we got tired of the intentional glaring ‘stares’ from a couple that was over in the corner. So Annie says to me quietly: “Hey let’s really give them something to talk about, you in?” Oh yeah! Annie (loudly): Dear, we better get going. We can’t leave the kids with the babysitter too long; she has to get home as she has school tomorrow. Me (also loudly): Oh, you’re right; I didn’t realize how late it was, and it’s time to put the kids to bed! Then as we left we rubbed it in a little deeper when she said loudly “Can you tuck the twins in while I run the babysitter home” “Sure thing” I replied. Annie (still loudly) “Oh you know I Love you so much” as she grabbed my arm and pulled me close. We cracked up laughing in the parking lot because we did get their undivided attention and also that of some of the workers.
That year Annie and I were also both on the Youth Council although sort-of by default as each grade got to elect two of their peers to the Youth Council which met to talk about ideas and planning of things we’d like to do and to be responsible for portions of events, whether it be to raise funds for summer camps or just get kid organized to bring snacks at an upcoming party. The topic of doing ‘another’ fund-raiser came up as we wanted to be able to reduce everyone’s cost for summer camp and provide help to those whose parents couldn’t afford to send all the kids in the family to the various grade levels of summer camps. The youth pastor pointed out that we had just ‘sold’ stuff at the holidays, followed by putting on spaghetti dinner/valentines banquet for couples at church and still needed more money. He said it would be nice if the youth group wasn’t ‘always’ hitting up the parents and church people by selling candy bars or putting on dinners. He wanted ideas that wouldn’t burden the church people, but that the community at large would support. Well, the usual ideas came up, sell something else but do it at school and to our neighbors. No, we’d surely just hit up our parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents as usual and we knew it. Other poor or impractical ideas were brought up and then someone said “I know we could do a Car-Wash!” It was now late spring and the weather was warming nicely and lots of cars still had the effects of the crud on them. The church wasn’t a good location as it didn’t have enough traffic going by and it sat back too far, but the youth pastor said someone on the church board had a family member that owned a gas station about a mile down from the church on the corner of a very busy intersection that had traffic lights. Perfect!
A date was chosen and the gas station owner was onboard; now what to wear? It was still somewhat cool outside, so it wasn’t shorts type weather which meant Levis 517 boot cut jeans that I’d been wearing all year to school and a printed t-shirt with a corduroy button up shirt that I could later unbutton and roll the sleeves up it was warm enough. I wore ‘Nike’ sports shoes in those days with calf length white cotton socks. Now I had met my high school credits and was bored silly Senior year with only a few classes in the morning, so had left to take part-time courses at the nearby college, but was waiting to graduate with my HS class in June, so I was technically still in my senior year of HS., but I had to have my own car to commute to campus a couple of suburbs over. Knowing what I had in mind after the car wash, I tossed a large clean towel in the car knowing I’d need to use it to cover the cloth seat to drive home soaking wet later when I was done.
The car wash was a good success. It started early enough that it was still chilly and no one was horsing around just yet, but doing a nice job of waving posters and getting cars in and those washing them were trying hard to keep up and also do a good job as it was ‘for a donation’ so the better people liked the car wash they got, the more they may donate and we let them know what the money would be used for. Of course as late morning came around the air warmed up and the amount of enthusiasm waned along with a drop in cars. By now everyone had taken turns washing, waving signs, talking to customers and resting. It was getting to around an hour left in our 3 hour car wash that a little spraying got sloppy enough to splash someone nearby just to keep things interesting along with the occasional slap with a soapy sponge when two washing got close together, of course never intentional (right!). It was about 10 mins. to go and we’d stopped flagging down cars and just finished drying the last one when we all breathed a sigh of relief and felt the joy of a job well done and quite a bit of money raised as people would donate more than a car wash was typically worth since it was to help kids go to summer camp.
Time to make a move! I eyed Dan who I knew was always up for any prank especially if it meant in any way getting other group members stirred up and said “Dan help me grab the buckets so we can empty them and rinse them out”. Once we each had the only two buckets which still had a bit of soap suds and water in them we walked close to each other as we approached each other I said: “let’s get the girls”. Quickly turning toward the gaggle of girls standing nearby talking we ran toward them and as we did they saw us coming and started to scatter which is when we were close enough to swing our buckets sideways letting the spray shower across most of the shrieking girls who yelled at us and called us a few names. It was Annie of course that said “Let’s get em!” to which the whole bunch of girls ran our way as we took off running as far as we could, but we knew we were at a place of business by invitation and had been told to stay away from the pumps and front of the station so our little side area was pretty limited; resulting in us running a bit in circles and being overwhelmed and headed off by girls who grabbed hold of us while you know who, Annie of course, grabbed the hose and got up close first to Dan while he squirmed to free himself from the death grip the girls had on him while I was content to stand and watch being held in a similar arms and legs death grip. Annie blasted Dan who yelled “Wow that’s Cold!” and after Dan was dripping she turned the hose on me. I had to make it look like I was fighting back to save a little dignity, so I remember jerking to the side pulling one girl slightly into the spray for a moment before the full force of the water was back on me. Now normally, I’d be happy as a pig in mud, but it was early May in N. IL and the tap water in town was pulled from Lake Michigan which is hundreds of feet deep in places, about 70 miles across and 300 miles long. Much of the lake freezes over in winter. I hadn’t thought about how cold the water would be. Yikes! Freezing!
For once I have to admit I used the towel to pat the dripping water from my clothes as I stood there shivering and unable to stop. Then placed the towel on the car seat and quickly hoped in sitting on the towel while to starting the car putting the heat way up on high to slow down the shivering enough for the 20 minute drive home. Walking in fully soaked, but not dripping anymore, I managed to take one of very few clothed showers I could ‘get away with’ while living with my parents. That was a long warm shower that afternoon as I remember turning the water off only after running out of hot water.
Hope you’re enjoying the ‘70’s cultural background as well as the wet adventures! Stay wet and Safe and check ‘the other site’ tomorrow. I’m still editing an unbelievable head shakin’ story of when I was 13 years old involving a certain ‘parental talk’, but not exactly the one you’d expect.

Follow Ups:

- Re: Wet Fund-Raiser Ry 05:26:35 12/27/2020 (6)
  - Re: Wet Fund-Raiser LeviLovR 13:12:20 12/27/2020 (4)
    - Re: Wet Fund-Raiser Wetnboy 01:38:16 12/28/2020 (3)
      - Re: Wet Fund-Raiser LeviLovR 04:17:59 12/28/2020 (2)
        - Re: Wet Fund-Raiser Wetnboy 23:40:52 12/28/2020 (1)
          - Re: Wet Fund-Raiser LeviLovR 01:14:12 12/29/2020 (0)
  - Re: Wet Fund-Raiser Wetnboy 06:47:42 12/27/2020 (0)

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