1977 goes Back to School!

Bud and Jeff are headed off to Illinois State University for a weekend of sex, drugs & rock and roll… for sure. Sit back and relax as they end up in the middle of ISU’s Rites of Spring concert weekend, plus Bud gets tempted to stay at ISU along the way.  We’ll see how this all works out.

The inspiration for this story came from my days at ISU. The University put on a free concert at the end of the school year called the Rites of Spring.  It was held on the weekend before finals, or thereabouts, as a way to give students a small break before cramming for exams and going home.  For 5 years the concerts went off perfectly… until 1977. Yeah, we trashed the freakin’ place. Pissing in bushes, leaving trash every where plus drinking and smoking were rampant and in the end, the University had to spend $30,000 to repair the damage and clean the Quad (the grassy area where the concerts were staged).  I was proud to be a student that year and to have contributed to the decadent lifestyles that ended the concerts forever.  Today, I’m not really proud of my behavior, but hey, I was 20 and really drunk.

Say what you will about Chuck Berry, but he did make some great little pop tunes and today’s song not only fits the theme perfectly, it is one of my favorite songs from him.  This and “No Particular Place to Go” are on my iTunes play list constantly despite the fact that they sound nearly identical.