In 1976, our country had just hit their two hundredth Birthday..and the entire U.S. of A. was waving flags and shooting off fireworks. Blanche Reynolds Elementary School in Ventura, California was no exception to being swept up in the Bicentennial frenzy. My three best friends, Ray, David, Ernie, and I were in sixth grade ready to move from Blanche Reynolds to junior high school.
As part of the festivities, Blanche Reynolds sponsored a mural drawing contest, and the winner was a student that depicted great American historical events on a poorly drawn map of the US (I'm sure we've all seen similar terrible murals in our own shool days)...I remember every student in the school signed a letter commemorating the Bicentennial...the lists of signatures were to be converted into micro-fiche and placed into the time capsule being assembled, to be unearthed at some unspecified time in the future. Topping off the Bicentennial celebration, we had a school wide assembly outside on the blacktop with Ventura Unified School District dignitaries and special guests. No one does patriotism over the top quite the way America does, and the Bicentennial was no exception.
Flash forward twenty years, Disco gave way to the 80's, crass commercialism, decadence, and greed. Rusty and I were in our early thrities by 1996, weathered harshly and with a great deal of pessimism left over from surviving the 80's. Why wouldn't we look toward the Bicentenniea for inspiration for our next tacky party. A time when America still seemed full of promise and hope. And so, this is the climate from whence our sixth tacky party was born...the Twentieth Anniversary of the Bicentennial.
Our invite warned people that there was a one song minimum Karaoke requirement bt a three song maximum. (That may have been included to curtail Rusty and myself from hogging the mic. all night).
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| Amazingly, Eddie, a Tacky Party regular, made this latex outfit. (He was working at Ms. S. Leather at the time outfitting all of SF with latex wear...a definite full time job in mid 90's SF). |
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| Guessing the Carmen's game was still a major component of the party (even after six years). |
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| Mary Jo fulfilling her one song minimum requirement. |
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| Steve Heist?!?!?!? A good friend and fellow ALC rider to this day. |
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| Yes, people we have a Liz sighting, certainly before Paul put a ring on it...we were pleased to have a visit from yet another Kegelmeyer, Paul's other sister, Beth. |
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| Making red, white, and blue fashionable... |
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| A mid centruy modern outfit to die for...Mary Jo sporting her latest frock from the Sears and Roebuck catalog. |
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| Delicious American fare... |
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| Jeff attending his third Tacky Party...one has to comb the Mission thrift stores for amny days for outfits this fabulous. |
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| Dierdre avoiding the one song minimum rule as long as she can. |
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| Well, that look says it all...someone is up to mischief. |
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| Wig head, at it's most basic level. Very Ziggy Stardust, gender bending... |
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Believe it or not kiddos, fanny packs were popular in the mid 90's and Terry is sporting his without irony. Fanny packs are definitely set to make a come back...
The evening was lots of fun...soon after our sixth tacky party, Rusty and I would be moving across country to North Carolina. Our San Francsco adventure was coming to a close. This patriotic send off was a perfect way to send us off into the great unknown...we would be trading in earthquakes for heat, humidity, and hurricanes. Never would I imagine that I would learn so much about NASCAR and moonshine. Everyone should live in San Francisco at least once, but wonderful things were awaiting for us in North-cack-alacky. So we had to bid Bohemia by the bay a happy trails and find our way to the Pine State. "Esse Quam Videri" indeed. |
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