The Coke Caper

THE COKE CAPER

During 1964 Khrushchev is replaced as Communist Party leader, Lyndon Johnson crushes Barry Goldwater as presidential nominee, Beatlemania sweeps the nation, Martin Luther King wins the Nobel Peace Prize, New York hosts the World’s Fair, Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston and sadly none of these historical events had any influence on me or my friends in the 7th grade. Summer was over and we had started back at Churchill Junior High School. Seventh grade was radically different from all grades previous as you had 6 or 7 different teachers and changed class about every 45 minutes or so. I liked it much better. It broke up the day by giving everyone a hall break at least 6 times a day where you could have a few words with you buds that weren’t in your class. Also your chances of getting teachers you liked improved and if you didn’t like one or two well you only had to put up with them for 45 minutes each rather than the entire day. Miss Lipman was our Spanish teacher and by far was my personal favorite. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t like I enjoyed Spanish or anything she was just really hot. I’m sure there were lottsa other 7th grade boys that had crushes on Miss Lipman not to mention Mr. Eppilido one of the gym teachers. The fact still remains that I was the only one who patted her ass in a bikini at Seaside Heights that summer. I was convinced she liked it! Hey I was an outta control hormonal teenager! Didn’t mean to get off there on a tangent back to the story.

Lois Park where I grew up was just a block from our high school so we always used to play ball on the fields there. One day in September while playing baseball on the field next to the football field we observed this panel truck driving up to the football field. The driver stopped at the gates and opened them with a key. He then proceeded into the area surrounding the field and stopped at the snack shop. This really got our attention as we stopped playing ball and spied on guy delivering canister after canister of coke. Enough to satisfy stands full of thirsty football fans. There didn’t seem to be a lock on the snack shop just the one on the entrance gate. The keen minds of 7th graders were at work. We figured we’d head up there around dusk and sneak onto the field behind the home grandstands where we had cut a line in the chain link fence last year. This way we could go to all the home games free.

There were six highly trained burglars involved in this caper; Tom and Pat Selvaggio, Joe Willis, Donny Hansen, my brother Kevin and I. We went through the woods across from Schaborder’s Farm passing all the fields back through the woods behind the Home Grand Stands. About two thirds the way down we found our magic door and all slipped through under the bleachers. It was getting dark so it would be difficult for anyone to see us. It was only about 30 yards from the beginning of the bleachers to the snack shack so in our best “I Spy” fashion we advanced to the target. Once there we just opened the unlocked door and helped ourselves to 3 or 4 canisters. They were much heavier than we expected and cumbersome. One guy really couldn’t carry one of them too far. We barely made it back to the bleachers. Huffing and puffing we were out of breath and excited we made it this far but realizing how much further we had to go we needed a better was to carry these lead torpedoes. We decided the best way was for one guy to shoulder the front and the other guy to shoulder the back. Kevin and Joe paired up as did Donny and Pat which left Tom and I to carry the third and fourth canister. By the time we reached the dugouts we were exhausted and needed water break. From the dugout to Cranberry Road was like traveling another football field and by the time we got there we were dragging these canisters over the humps on the path. We did have the cover of darkness now and were excited realizing we were in the home stretch and we actually pulled this off. We crossed the road and ran into the safety of the woods. The Woods was like an extension of our back yards. We knew every inch of the territory and had many forts built to defend this precious property. We could celebrate now we were home free! You would have thought we just robbed The Heritage Savings Bank the way we acted. We put all the canisters in my parents garage as it was the closest and we didn’t want to carry them any further. We closed the garage door so no one could see us and marveled at out treasure. It wasn’t until that moment we realized we didn’t have a tap for the highly pressurized canisters. So we improvised by sticking a screw driver into the valve and aiming it into our mouths. We actually did that for a couple of days until we got a beer tap from Chets and could actually poor soda. We shared our good fortune with all our friends! We were Coked up for months!! There’s nothing like the free taste of Coke!!!