All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz and I'm fine

As mentioned numerous times in the past, I grew up in the city of Burlington Ontario. Burlington is about 30 minutes outside of Toronto, and although it is bursting at the seams now, in the 80's it was still a fairly small community, with lots of open spaces, forests, and rural areas.

I mention this, because growing up in a city that has it's own rural area provides a unique experience for teenagers. Something called Bush Parties.

We had many different areas that we would party in, Lions Park off Highway Five, Mount Nemo up near Lowville, Henderson Park close to Milton. We were even lucky enough to have some friends with big backyards to party in. But my favourite was the area we used at the north end of Burloak Drive, where the road had been closed and was no longer accessible by vehicles.

To get to the spot, you had to park your car at the end of the road, where there was a cement barricade. We had to be quiet when we got there, as there were houses nearby. You did not want to give yourself away with the tell tale sounds of beer bottles and laughter. We'd quietly climb over the barricade, and make our way about 1/2 mile into the bush.

Someone at some point had built a fire pit there, with logs and rocks around it for sitting on. There were always remnants of a previous party left behind, empty bottles of Export, tattered Molson Canadian cases, bottles with holes in the bottom and the fire pit full of broken glass and beer caps.

But we didn't care. We'd push the garbage aside, start a fire, throw a cassette into someones boom box, and we'd have a party. How simple was that.

We'd drink beer, pass around a joint or two, sing along to what ever was playing. Most nights like that we'd be listening to classic rock tunes, like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Boston or Steve Miller. Stuff you could sing along to.

Sometimes you'd know everyone there, sometimes two or three groups of people would show up on the same night, and the party would be huge. There were no cliques there, there were no popularity contests, everyone just got along. We were there to have a good time, and nothing was going to stop us.

I can remember one night in particular where I was dancing around the fire with John and he tried to dip me. Right into the fire. We must have both been pretty drunk, because we both lost our footing, he dropped me, and I landed right in the middle of the fire. Don't ask me how, it must be that teenage invincibility thing, but I didn't even singe my hair. John scooped me up so fast the only damage was was the black soot all over my jeans.

We hardly had time to recover from that when someone backed up too far and took a tumble down the ravine next to the area we were sitting. He should have been seriously hurt, but managed to climb back up with hardly more than a few bumps and scrapes.

Things like that would have the whole crowd doubled over, peals of laughter could be heard from miles away.

Then there was the night when one of the drivers took off early, and I offered to stuff about 8 people in my car to get them back to town. I told John and Steve to wait for me, I'd be right back, but John misunderstood and thought I was taking off on him. Unbeknownst to me, the bugger jumped on the back of my car as I was driving away and climbed up onto the roof. I did not even know he was there until I reached about 50km/hr, heard a loud "thump" and suddenly there were hands laying flat against my windshield. I immediately stopped the car, got out and started yelling at him. He just laughed at me, his surfer laugh that reminded me of Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

"But I'm Surfing Tee!" he explained.

He actually wanted me to drive all the way down Burloak Drive with him on the roof of my car! It took some coaxing, but I eventually got him inside. With all the people there already, he had to lie down across their laps in the back seat, which resulted in great fits of giggles, and many exclamations of "Hey who's hand is that?" and, "Ohmigod I'm gonna puke!", among other things.

I'm fortunate enough to live in a rural area now, and some summer nights we might have a few people over, light a fire in our backyard, put on some music and enjoy the evening. True, there's no dancing over the fire, or Car Surfing involved, but if I close my eyes, just for a moment, I can be back in Burlington and it will be 1989. I'll hear the laughter of my friends around me, smell the sweet smoke of a joint being passed around the fire. I'll be young, and free, and so happy. And it will make me smile, knowing how lucky I was to have those times, those friends and those memories.

I'm so glad I grew up where I did. I don't know if I could have been any happier anywhere else.