FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS - "OUT"

Friday Night Lights – “Out”

 by Richard Drake, guest writer

In the 1950’s, growing up in Clovis was a lot of fun.  With no I-phones, Twitter, Facebook, computer games and television, we had no trouble entertaining ourselves.  We played tricks on friends and pulled pranks.  I don’t remember anyone doing anything mean or causing any damage.

  One of the most popular things for the girls was to have a “slumber” party.  They were usually were held on a Friday night because everyone went to church on Sundays.  Parents did want to have a group of sleep deprived young females in their house while dressing for the service.

Boys did not like those slumber parties.  Since most of us were dating one of the girls at the party, we were on our own.  We would drive by the location of the party and sometimes honk just to let them know that we “cared”. 

One night someone came up with the idea to turn the lights off at the party house.  So that became the game.  One of the guys in the group would creep into the backyard to the home’s electric box and throw the main switch.  To establish an alibi, we would drive as fast as we could to Main Street and start dragging and waving at every car. The girls would squeal in mock panic until the father of the house got his flashlight and went out and restored the power.  The girls thought it was cute but the father did not. 

 The hard part for the boys was on the next day when confronted by the girls.  They had to keep a straight face while denying any knowledge of the “terrible” event.  Of course at some point one of the boys would sing like a canary under the relentless pressure from his girlfriend.  In most instances, he would admit his part but did not tell on his friends.  In Clovis, everyone knew who ran together. So in no time, all of the culprits were identified. Fortunately the girls never told their fathers in fear that the guy would be put on the “DO NOT DATE” list.

The pranks went on for the better part of the summer until one of the fathers got smart.  The home’s electric box was located on the back of the garage separated from the alley by a six foot high concrete block fence. During the week of his daughter’s next slumber party, he kept the lawn sprinkler running for two or three days in the area between the garage and the fence. It turned that spot into a quagmire of the type that became infamous in Vietnam.

After the party got going, a group of guys drove slowly with lights out down the alley behind the house.  One of them stood in the back of the pickup and jumped over the concrete block wall right into the middle of the “swamp”.  He went into the mud up to the top of his ankles.  It was almost impossible to extract him.

 A friend of the group was dating the girl.  He dropped by to visit the next day and her father took great pride in showing him the aftermath of the incident. In the light of day it looked like an army had run through the mud.  The father was very proud of his handy work and was busy telling all of the parents of his solution to the lights out problem.

That did not put an end to the prank.  Some people had the electric boxes in their garages which had concrete floors.  Remember no one locked their doors in Clovis in the early 1950’s so it required a “brave one” to sneak into the garage to do the “deed”.  Before the summer was out all of the teenage girls lived in homes with a pad lock on the electric panel box at their home.  The game was over.

Sadly, “Friday Night Lights” never went out again in Clovis.