Casa Grande High School
Class of 1979

This float nearly cost us the ability to attend school functions for the remainder of the school year.  These were the threats of "the man" the Monday morning following Homecoming.

What a blast!  It was decided that our senior year homecoming was just too important of an event to let pass without branding it in our own special way.

Since Casa did not have its own football stadium, our home games were played at Petaluma High.  Part of our Homecoming Game tradition included a parade from the Casa Grande student parking lot to Petaluma High.

We knew we wanted to enter a float but only officially sponsored clubs were allowed.  A previous class had formed a then defunct club called "CHASE".  The charter of the club was to pick a hot girl of the week whose photograph would be posted near the library.  We found a willing staff member to represent us and resurrected the club.  Frankly, it could have been a knitting club for all we cared.  We already were a crew.  We only needed the club to get our float entered.

The nights leading up to the event are pretty much a blur.  Not because we were so hard at work.  The night before the parade, we realized that we had better come up with something.  A town-wide, multi-vehicle scavenger hunt ensued.  We all met back and Abbie's house and all of the crap we had collected assembled in the yard.  A little while later, other friends arrived with two items on which the whole theme of the float hinged - a and a fiberglass horse lent to us by a local tack shop and a road kill skunk that had not released its scent.

Oh, another of the requirements was that an "adult" drive the float.  Thankfully we had an "adult" friend, Satch Silvers, who graciously volunteered (an if memory serves me correctly, it was his truck).  So with a big pile of liberated crap, a big flatbed truck, and a horse, we sent to work.

The Float is Completed - Finishing Touches - The Parade

To fit into the imposed "Western" theme of the parade, our float featured an effigy of an Analy High Football played on a gallows sitting on a horse in front of a crudely painted jail scene.  The back side of the mural was painted a giant bottle of the favorite drink of a red-eye, Löwenbräu beer.  Coincidentally, we were able to scrounge enough empties to use as ornamentation on the trucks antlers.  For a finishing touch, the truck was painted with popular slogans of the day.  For example, upon one headlight was painted the word "EAT" and on the other, "ME."

As we set off from Casa in the caravan, partying commenced.  If you have no clue what this means, too bad for you.  Okay I will be nice and give a hint - what occurs while sitting in "the circle" on That 70s Show.  As we arrived at the entrance gate to the track and were queued up, school staff (the principal, the dean, etc.) came up and gave us crap.  We were instructed to remove the beer bottles and behave.  The beer bottles were passed down into the cab and off we went.

Once onto the track, bottles were replaced onto the antlers, paper covering up some of the more off color sayings removed (for example, "79 Loves 69") and as we passed in front of the visiting teams bleachers, the dead skunk was launched up into the stands.  Now at this point, it still did not smell.  However, a spectator decided to make the genius move of throwing it back.  We were already passed so the abused carcass of the skunk landed on the track - directly in the path of the FFA's float.  They ran over it (poor skunk), emptied its scent glands, and proceeded to drag it around the track.  The stench was pretty overpowering.

As we passed our stands, we presented our cracked moons in salute to our homies, and attempted to leave the scene of the mayhem we had created.  Between the fumes of the skunk and the effects of the herb, memories are a bit fuzzy here.  But as recalled, there was no one blocking our exit.

The following Monday we were called into the principal's office and yelled at with all of the expected tirade as well as told that if we acted up again, we would not be allowed to attend any further school functions or allowed to graduate with our classmates.  Then, the last threat, was that the club charter was revoked and it was to be disbanded.  We feigned shock, horror, and disbelief.  And laughed our asses off as we left.  CHASE Club pulled off what it had set out to do.

[NOTE:  If you have photos of the float, additional facts (no matter how trivial) or corrections, please email them to ]

Check out what they do to Gauchos in 2005 who are pranksters and non-conformists.

* Mr. Hugh Jorgan is actually a composite of individuals who collaborated on piecing together the events from memories that were scrambled by youth, drugs, alcohol and devil rock music.

Since they are now contributing and functioning members of society, a society that loves to overlay currently accepted norms over those of the past, they chose to remain anonymous.

No apologies - No Regrets!  Remember people . . . it was a different time. Underage drinking and the inhalation of the herb superb was not evil or wicked until the Reagan-era and the "War on Drugs.".  It did not result in gang fights, drive by shootings or act as a gateway to "harder" narcotics.  It did result in some damn fun times and great memories.  If you want to pretend that the 70s were different, remember the words on the Animal House cake float . . . "Eat Me."  Don't judge the past using the accepted norms of today.

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