Time for another Joker trip down mammary...(uh...excuse me---surfing porn)...memory lane.
The time? The late 70's...a Patriot home game.
So I worked at the hottest night club in Providence at the time. Place called "Engine Company". At the foot of college hill on South Main St. We had about 50 employees at the time and the owners, Billy Martin and Ronnie Oakes decided to reward everyone for making THEM so much moolah so they rented a school bus and bought a block of tickets around the 50 yard line. We loaded the back up with kegs and cases of Heineken, bottles of Jack and vodka, plenty of ice...the whole works. I mean when I say this was a professional undertaking I mean it in the most certain way when discussing bar employees. All the bartenders, all the doormen, the valets, the bar maids...everybody went. Billy and Ronnie closed the bar for the day and off we went.
We get to Schaefer 5 sheets to the wind and pile out in the parking lot near the east entrance.30-40 guys pissing like racehorses, doing shots of Rumplemintz from the bottle and chasing them with Heinekens. The bus driver tells us to make it back to the spot right after the game and we head off. I forget who the opponent was but the place was rocking and rolling, the stands (*aluminum benches) were packed with rowdy drunks and as the game went on more than a few skirmishes broke out with enemy fans.(*Steeler jerks I think). The 4th quarter starts and we have a lead going into the final minutes. Suddenly, our manager and head bartender run down to the field and start brawling with some other guys. So of course we gotta back them up and well...not hard to imagine what happened next. Here come the state police in riot gear to break everything up. Manager Eddie, vowing not to be taken alive, runs on the field and runs to the 50 yard line where he promptly drops his pants and moons the entire stadium. Pandemonium.
When I say I worked with some rather large young men I mean H-U-G-E. Three or four of them were 6'6" to 6'8" and everyone loved to brawl.
The lesson learned that day was NEVER...EVER...screw around with the Mass State police riot unit. I made it back to the bus post game and there were the girls and five of us guys at the bus. Everybody else got arrested. What a freaking ride back to Providence. I get to the club and Ronnie Oakes is inside and asks me "where the hell is everybody, J.O.???".I fill him in and he calls the Foxboro police to find out the details. Well, to make a long story short, he gives me some cash and I head back up to Foxboro to bail everybody out.Me, the bus driver and the empty bus. I'll never forget the faces on those guys when I got there....past drunk, all beat up, still woozy. Everybody gets in and we head back to Providence. Ronnie tells everybody "back to work ...we open at 9"...yeah, THAT was a pretty quiet night the rest of the shift.
The next day I returned to get our head bartender, Eddie...the cops wouldn't let him go until he plead to indecent exposure for dropping trou on the 50 yard line. The judge fined him all the money he had left in his pockets...about 50 bucks. LMAO...man, Eddie paid for that for YEARS.
