A Hot Night in Alpena
Before I tell this one, I would like to state that I am not obsessed with public nudity. It's just that a lot of my crazier experiences involve it.
We were playing a gig in Alpena, Michigan, in the middle of Summer. Alpena is a northern Michigan beach town on the shore of Lake Huron. It was close to 100 degrees that day, and it was certainly hotter than that on the stage of this dive.
Some local girls wanted to party with us after the gig, and we told them we wanted to go swimming, to cool us off. They took us to a local public beach. It was 3 AM, and nobody else was around, so all of us just dropped our clothes on the beach and jumped in. We were swimming around, and whooping it up, but a few of us had run out of beer. So, I volunteered to go back to the cooler on shore, and bring some out.
When I was almost back to the shoreline, a very bright flashlight blinded me. A male voice said, "Get over here, NOW. I knew it had to be a cop. Since I have an aversion to getting arrested while stark naked, I took off down the beach, like a nude bat out of Hell. I was much faster than he was ( all those clothes must have weighed him down), and managed to escape. The last thing he saw must have been my lily white ass streaking up the beach.
At this point, I realized that all my clothes were still laying on the beach, with my wallet, ID, and everything. Furthermore, I had no idea where I was, except for the fact that I was ducking around some neighborhood bushes. The inescapable reality was that I had to go back and turn myself in, for the heinous crime committed.
So, I cautiously approached the scene of the crime, staying hidden. What I saw next was unforgettable. There were 3 cop cars on the beach, in a sort of triangle. With their lights blazing like it was broad daylight, they had all my naked cohorts, male and female, rounded up in the center. The bandleader is standing there in his birthday suit, cupping his willie with one hand, and his mouth with the other, hollering at the top of his lungs: "RITCHIE, COME BACK OR THEY'RE GONNA TAKE US ALL TO JAIL!!".
So, I did what had to be done. The cops could hardly keep from laughing. They let everyone get dressed and leave. Except the bandleader and myself got charged with being "disorderly persons". Me for running, and him just because he was naturally a jerk.
We had to show up in court a month later, at 8 AM. Alpena is a 4 hour drive from where I live, so we had to leave at 3:30 AM just to get there on time. The judge laughed at us, fined us $100 each, and sent us on our way.
After we left the courthouse, we went to visit 2 of the girls who were with us that night. We talked about going swimming, but decided on some indoor activities.
