A SADD Day
When I was still in high school, I joined a group called SADD which stands for ‘Students Against Drunk Driving’. For many years, Port Perry was the capital of drunk driving deaths in Canada and we had a number of students die during my time in school.
A small subsection of this group was formed to create a play, which travelled from school to school in Durham region, putting on the play for other students, spreading the message of 'if you drink, don't drive'.
I was in this group, having had some theatre experience as a kid.
When I was in grade nine, there was lots of resources provided for this travelling theatre group so we always had buses to take us to the various performances. However, after a year or so the budget was reduced to almost nothing.
When I went into grade ten, I was put in charge of the play and we had 10 or so kids performing.
One week, early in the school year, we were scheduled to do a performance at 9:30am Monday morning at Ajax High School. Ajax is about 40 minutes away from Port Perry.
I had arranged for three cars to drive us, one driven by the teacher supervisor and two others by students.
When we all showed up at 8:00am on Monday only one car was there and that was the one driven by the teacher.
The two other idiots didn't bother to show up and with a show to do in an hour and a half, and no other cars to take us...it looked like we were in trouble.
Luckily I had a friend named Dan LePage, who at 16 years of age had his own car. He readily agreed to drive us on our outing and he quickly arrived at the school.
Dan didn't own what you'd call a 'large' car...it was a two-door 1980 Honda Civic.
Including Dan and the supervising teacher there were twelve of us and two cars. Six people fit into the teacher’s car and off she went; she hadn’t seen Dan’s car yet so she wasn’t aware how small it was. She did hand Dan $20 for gas before she left.
One of the guys was fairly big and so he took the passenger seat; there were 3 of us squeezed into the back seat and a girl was in the trunk. Although she was sitting in the trunk her head was sticking out above the backseat of the car as the trunk was open to the main cabin of the car.
Okay, perhaps not exactly the safest way to travel or the most comfortable one but it was now 8:20am and we had to get going.
Dan’s gas gauge showed completely empty; he said he knew his car and there would be plenty of gas to get us to the gas station. He preferred to use a gas station just outside of town which was also on the way because he knew the gas would be cheaper there.
So off we went.
5 minutes later, we were stuck on the side of a country highway, as we had run out of gas.
Before the car conked out, amid Dan saying, "I know my car, we'll be fine", we made it just outside of town on an old country road that had nothing but farms on it and we were still 4 or 5 kilometers from the gas station that we were trying to get to.
Everyone got out of the car. The only buildings we could see were two farm houses....one in front of us, and one behind us.
So, we split up into two groups to go looking for gas at each of the houses.
I went with Dan and one of the girls and we walked down to an old farmhouse and knocked on the door.
The old farmer who answered was very nice and lent us his plastic gas can which was almost full. We walked back to the car and met the others who had also just returned carrying a large plastic gas container…which also, was almost full with gasoline.
The time at this point was 8:50am; we didn’t have time to return the tanks. We put the gas from the two containers into the tank; it wasn’t a lot but it was enough to get us there. Our plan was to take the containers with us, go perform the show; we’d then fill up the car and the gas containers afterwards and on the way home we’d return the gas tanks to the owners. It seemed like a reasonable plan.
We got into the car, same seats for all, only this time we had to also take the two containers which still reeked of gasoline.
Although we had the windows down the entire drive, and the containers were completely empty of gas, the fumes were unbelievable. It was really hard to breathe.
In fact, before long we feeling dizzy, incoherent, and had difficulty concentrating on anything. We were wasted from the gas fumes.
Yes. Wasted we were. Blitzed, in fact.
And on our way to teach teenagers why they should never drink and drive.
There are six of us squashed into a car that barely seats two, including one girl in the trunk. There are two tanks of gas on our laps, and we’re so high off of the gas fumes we can’t stop laughing.
We did arrive at the Ajax High School right at 9:30am…right on time to go on stage.
It was very obvious that we were all stoned. Our eyes were red. We were all giggling. And one guy kept asking if we could get some chips. Plus we all just reeked of gasoline.
They hurried us to the stage in the auditorium, which was already packed with students to watch our show.
The five students in the play group that arrived with the teacher were fine, although they had been wondering what took us so long to arrive. The play was made up of a number of skits, each one was pertaining to a scene in which teenagers made bad decisions to drive while drinking and they paid the ultimate price.
The five of us who were high were extra loud and trying to be extra funny as we performed; I even grabbed Dan from off to the side and pulled him on stage.
Several skits were centered on the premise of underage teenagers drinking at a party. So when I pulled Dan on stage, even though he had never acted in a play in his life, he adapted quickly to play the stoner in the back of the room that just giggled at everything.
The kids in the crowd loved our show, especially Dan. It was our best reaction yet.
However, the message of our skits started to become a little skewed after a while.
That might have been because as we ad-libbed each of our skits in our current state, we made the last 10% of each skit about not driving while drunk and the first 90% about how fun it is to get drunk and stoned.
The last scene of each skit was meant to be serious and involved the decision to go driving while drunk. For most of these skits, we sat in chairs, pretending to be in a car, driving away from the party and sound effects and lighting effects helped show that we were involved in a fatal accident.
It is a very serious message. It is 'the' message of the play.
That message was a little lost as Dan kept saying "Dude, I think I'm dead again!" as he lay on the floor at the end of each skit...and of course all 5 of us gas-stoners couldn’t stop giggling over it.
Like I said, we were a hit. The kids loved us.
The teachers? Not quite as impressed.
Afterwards, I could see the principal of the school talking to our teacher supervisor. The principal didn't look happy at all. And of course, neither was our teacher.
I still remember how angry she looked after her conversation with the principal; she walked right by me, not even looking at me and growled, “Let’s Go”.
However, I don’t think she understood that we really were under the influence and not just pretending, for she got into her car with her five passengers and left without talking to us.
We all knew we were probably going to be in trouble when we got back to Port Perry so we didn’t go home right away; plus we had the munchies so we hit every fast food place from Ajax to Port Perry.
In the end, however, nothing happened, at least to me.
The rumour was that the teacher was soon transferred to another school; and someone told me she got in trouble for not providing adequate supervision and for not ensuring a safe environment for the students under her care.
Needless to say, there were no more SADD plays after that one.
A small subsection of this group was formed to create a play, which travelled from school to school in Durham region, putting on the play for other students, spreading the message of 'if you drink, don't drive'.
I was in this group, having had some theatre experience as a kid.
When I was in grade nine, there was lots of resources provided for this travelling theatre group so we always had buses to take us to the various performances. However, after a year or so the budget was reduced to almost nothing.
When I went into grade ten, I was put in charge of the play and we had 10 or so kids performing.
One week, early in the school year, we were scheduled to do a performance at 9:30am Monday morning at Ajax High School. Ajax is about 40 minutes away from Port Perry.
I had arranged for three cars to drive us, one driven by the teacher supervisor and two others by students.
When we all showed up at 8:00am on Monday only one car was there and that was the one driven by the teacher.
The two other idiots didn't bother to show up and with a show to do in an hour and a half, and no other cars to take us...it looked like we were in trouble.
Luckily I had a friend named Dan LePage, who at 16 years of age had his own car. He readily agreed to drive us on our outing and he quickly arrived at the school.
Dan didn't own what you'd call a 'large' car...it was a two-door 1980 Honda Civic.
Including Dan and the supervising teacher there were twelve of us and two cars. Six people fit into the teacher’s car and off she went; she hadn’t seen Dan’s car yet so she wasn’t aware how small it was. She did hand Dan $20 for gas before she left.
One of the guys was fairly big and so he took the passenger seat; there were 3 of us squeezed into the back seat and a girl was in the trunk. Although she was sitting in the trunk her head was sticking out above the backseat of the car as the trunk was open to the main cabin of the car.
Okay, perhaps not exactly the safest way to travel or the most comfortable one but it was now 8:20am and we had to get going.
Dan’s gas gauge showed completely empty; he said he knew his car and there would be plenty of gas to get us to the gas station. He preferred to use a gas station just outside of town which was also on the way because he knew the gas would be cheaper there.
So off we went.
5 minutes later, we were stuck on the side of a country highway, as we had run out of gas.
Before the car conked out, amid Dan saying, "I know my car, we'll be fine", we made it just outside of town on an old country road that had nothing but farms on it and we were still 4 or 5 kilometers from the gas station that we were trying to get to.
Everyone got out of the car. The only buildings we could see were two farm houses....one in front of us, and one behind us.
So, we split up into two groups to go looking for gas at each of the houses.
I went with Dan and one of the girls and we walked down to an old farmhouse and knocked on the door.
The old farmer who answered was very nice and lent us his plastic gas can which was almost full. We walked back to the car and met the others who had also just returned carrying a large plastic gas container…which also, was almost full with gasoline.
The time at this point was 8:50am; we didn’t have time to return the tanks. We put the gas from the two containers into the tank; it wasn’t a lot but it was enough to get us there. Our plan was to take the containers with us, go perform the show; we’d then fill up the car and the gas containers afterwards and on the way home we’d return the gas tanks to the owners. It seemed like a reasonable plan.
We got into the car, same seats for all, only this time we had to also take the two containers which still reeked of gasoline.
Although we had the windows down the entire drive, and the containers were completely empty of gas, the fumes were unbelievable. It was really hard to breathe.
In fact, before long we feeling dizzy, incoherent, and had difficulty concentrating on anything. We were wasted from the gas fumes.
Yes. Wasted we were. Blitzed, in fact.
And on our way to teach teenagers why they should never drink and drive.
There are six of us squashed into a car that barely seats two, including one girl in the trunk. There are two tanks of gas on our laps, and we’re so high off of the gas fumes we can’t stop laughing.
We did arrive at the Ajax High School right at 9:30am…right on time to go on stage.
It was very obvious that we were all stoned. Our eyes were red. We were all giggling. And one guy kept asking if we could get some chips. Plus we all just reeked of gasoline.
They hurried us to the stage in the auditorium, which was already packed with students to watch our show.
The five students in the play group that arrived with the teacher were fine, although they had been wondering what took us so long to arrive. The play was made up of a number of skits, each one was pertaining to a scene in which teenagers made bad decisions to drive while drinking and they paid the ultimate price.
The five of us who were high were extra loud and trying to be extra funny as we performed; I even grabbed Dan from off to the side and pulled him on stage.
Several skits were centered on the premise of underage teenagers drinking at a party. So when I pulled Dan on stage, even though he had never acted in a play in his life, he adapted quickly to play the stoner in the back of the room that just giggled at everything.
The kids in the crowd loved our show, especially Dan. It was our best reaction yet.
However, the message of our skits started to become a little skewed after a while.
That might have been because as we ad-libbed each of our skits in our current state, we made the last 10% of each skit about not driving while drunk and the first 90% about how fun it is to get drunk and stoned.
The last scene of each skit was meant to be serious and involved the decision to go driving while drunk. For most of these skits, we sat in chairs, pretending to be in a car, driving away from the party and sound effects and lighting effects helped show that we were involved in a fatal accident.
It is a very serious message. It is 'the' message of the play.
That message was a little lost as Dan kept saying "Dude, I think I'm dead again!" as he lay on the floor at the end of each skit...and of course all 5 of us gas-stoners couldn’t stop giggling over it.
Like I said, we were a hit. The kids loved us.
The teachers? Not quite as impressed.
Afterwards, I could see the principal of the school talking to our teacher supervisor. The principal didn't look happy at all. And of course, neither was our teacher.
I still remember how angry she looked after her conversation with the principal; she walked right by me, not even looking at me and growled, “Let’s Go”.
However, I don’t think she understood that we really were under the influence and not just pretending, for she got into her car with her five passengers and left without talking to us.
We all knew we were probably going to be in trouble when we got back to Port Perry so we didn’t go home right away; plus we had the munchies so we hit every fast food place from Ajax to Port Perry.
In the end, however, nothing happened, at least to me.
The rumour was that the teacher was soon transferred to another school; and someone told me she got in trouble for not providing adequate supervision and for not ensuring a safe environment for the students under her care.
Needless to say, there were no more SADD plays after that one.
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1 comment:
Ha. I always wondered what killed SADD?
Bad luck on the teacher's part. If they knew half of what Mr. A let SADD get away with... (I distinctly remember forging parental consent forms under his instructions).
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