The Dixieland Years
By James Donahue
Looking back on it, I am somewhat amazed that I survived my college years, or that I ever graduated. Once Bill Havers and I linked up, we were in what was almost a constant state of wild abandon. Bill, who I am sure had a genius IQ, never studied. He attended class, but only cracked his text books the night before his exams. He would pop a Dexedrine pill, sit up all night and pour over the material, then go into his class and ace the exams. He did it constantly.
Naturally, Bill introduced me to the wonders of Dexedrine, which was a legal amphetamine that was relatively easy to purchase in drug stores in those days. Bill seemed to have friends in the chemistry department, and working in the area drug stores that could provide us with all of the Dexedrine we needed to maintain our studies in spite of spending most of our time in pure play. One of my Sociology professors called it a “prolongation of infancy.”
Since Bill was a music major, and a great banjo player, it all evolved into the creation of a Dixieland band called The Beaver Boys.
The Beaver Boys Dixieland Band got quickly popular. In addition to free concerts along the Chippewa River, where students gathered on warm nights for drinking parties, the band was starting to get hired to play for college and high school dances. When playing on campus, I was usually there with a date, dancing to the beat. When off on “gigs” at high school dances, I usually went along, but my role was much different. I recall once sitting hidden behind the piano, mixing drinks for the band members, while students danced on the gym floors.
We began collecting recordings of some of the great Dixieland bands. We had Louis Armstrong, Wilbur DeParis, and the Firehouse Five among many others. We also got interested in the cool contemporary jazz performers like Dave Brubeck and Errol Garner. After Bill saw a performance of a musical “New Girl In Town,” he became obsessed with the music, bought the album, and played it so many times I can still sing some of the songs and remember all of the words.
Living with Bill had certain financial advantages. Since his father owned and operated a grocery store, we were supplied with lots of foods, often at no cost, and sometimes managed to prepare somewhat elaborate meals in the Mogg Hall kitchen, located in a dank dark basement where we lived. That didn’t deter us, however. Also, we got our cigarettes in those days by the carton, at wholesale cost. And cigarettes were cheap then. We paid something like fifteen cents a pack. I was smoking Chesterfield kings, and puffing away on about two packs a day.
Bill’s quick mind was always making life interesting for the Beaver Boys. He was driving a 1950 Ford that he called the “Beaver Car.” That vehicle took us on various adventures all over Michigan and sometimes beyond. On one wild weekend Bill, the trombone player Tom Stroff and I drove across the Mackinaw Bridge, took Highway 2 west across the Upper Peninsula into Wisconsin, and spent an evening drinking legally in a country tavern in a county that allowed men to drink at age 18. Michigan still prohibited drinking until age 21. After the bar closed, we toured the area in a drunken state, attempting to find a stream or lake to fish. Then we ended up driving all the way back to Mount Pleasant, having had no sleep and quite hung over. We saw an amazing number of deer all along that highway and I wonder to this day why we didn’t hit any of them. We took a Dexedrine to keep us awake for the ride home. I remember that as we were driving into Mount Pleasant, Bill noticed that a full-length Three Stooges movie was playing that afternoon in the town theater. We parked the car and went into the theater. I think I might have slept through the movie.
That was the beginning of Bill’s slapstick period. He went out of his way to watch the Three Stooges episodes whenever and where ever he could find them. Two of the “Beavers” were renting an upstairs apartment down the street from Mogg Hall where we could hold drinking parties, and we spent a lot of time there. We would bring our dates, sit around drinking and talking and listening to Brubeck. That was the “in” thing.
One day Bill coaxed us into holding a pie-throwing party in that apartment. We spent the day collecting cheap throw-away pie tins, some kind of gooey substance to imitate a soft pie filling, then topped the mixture with whipping cream from those shake-up canisters. We had our “pies” lying all over the place and were sitting around, drinking beer, just waiting for some reason to start the party. That was the day Bill filled an empty beer bottle with urine, put a cap on it, and put his doctored bottle in the refrigerator. Later, when one of the “gang” showed up to join the party, and Bill’s special bottle was cold, he offered the bottle to this unsuspecting fellow. He took one gulp, realized he had been tricked, and went after Bill. He was rewarded with the first pie in the face.
The mêlée that followed was almost scary to think about. We had made a lot of pies and they were flying all over the place. We made such a mess that the guys renting the apartment had a terrible time cleaning up. The story got out and the landlord kicked them out. Thus our favorite hangout came to a sudden end.
Our adventures with Bill and his Ford took us on two other interesting tours across Michigan highways. One was a trip to Detroit where we attended a live concert by jazz pianist Errol Garner. I had a beard then, and was admiring the writings of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. My date for the ride was a girl I remember only as Carol. We called her Beat because she was attracted to me because of my beard. She checked out of the women’s dormitory and spent the night with us on the road to Detroit and back. We couldn’t go to bed until the dormitory opened again the next morning.
The other trip took us west to Lake Michigan where we attended a live concert by Louis Armstrong and his Dixie band in an old Fruitport ballroom. We had a carload of guys on that trip, and we were drinking beer all the way. Naturally the first visit once we arrived was the men’s restroom. No sooner had we entered, we were followed by none other than Armstrong and his entire band. They apparently arrived right behind us. Louie went into a vacant stall and closed the door. Gary Cardin had the gall to go up to that stall and ask: “Is that you Louie?” To which came the gravel-voiced answer: “Yeah, Daddy!” Cardin then proceeded to tell Armstrong that he played trumpet too, and was anxious to hear the concert. We were all quite amazed to think that we shared a urine call with a master musician like that. Needless to say, the concert that night was amazing. There were no seats so everybody stood directly in front of the stage, swaying and dancing to the music. We could get within a few feet of the band. I remember that Armstrong had such a large callous on his lip from years of blowing his trumpet that he had to blow out of the side of his mouth. He had a handkerchief in one hand that he used to constantly wipe spit from the other side of his face.
Spring arrived early during my junior year. It got warm and balmy about a week before the long awaited spring break and the students began partying all along the banks of the Chippewa River. One night the Beaver Boys brought their instruments to one of the parties. They all scaled separate trees surrounding one of the campfires and then played “When the Saints Go Marching In” from the trees. It was weird to hear the music coming at us like that. All of the band members took turns doing solo performances from their trees. It was just after that when the police raided the party and everybody scattered.
We were reading and discussing Mark Twain’s classic “Huck Finn” in one of my American English classes that spring. At least one of the other band members was in that same class. One night when talking about Finn’s trip on a raft down the Mississippi, Havers got the idea of a Beaver Raft on the Chippewa. The Chippewa was a great river to canoe on, but it ran a little too fast for a raft. And Bill clearly wanted the band to ride and raft and play. There was an old concrete damn still standing in Mount Pleasant that had once serviced a mill. Consequently there was a relatively large body of water stored behind the damn. We chose that pond on which to build and float our raft. By mid-day on a Saturday, the raft was afloat, the band was on it, a case of beer in the middle (for ballast) and we were using a canoe to get to it from the river bank. The band performed that afternoon as people from town gathered along the banks to listen in startled amazement at what was going on. We all got seriously sunburned but had a great day of it.
During one summer break, the entire band took a job at the Green Mill, a bar located just south of Port Austin near our hometown. That summer I took a job as a reporter at the Huron Daily Tribune in Bad Axe, just south of there. It was a wild summer. The band played every Saturday night. I was always there, enjoying the music and picking up girls for beach parties that went on after the bar closed.
One night my parents were away and the band gathered at the house. We rolled up the carpet and they set up to play in our living room. I think that was a weekend when we all drove up with girls from the college. I now find it difficult to believe that I was enjoying such an amazing life style in those days.
Sadly, it all came to a sudden an unexpected end with a crash. I was involved in a serious automobile accident that changed my life. In retrospect, the accident that nearly killed me probably saved my life.
By James Donahue
Looking back on it, I am somewhat amazed that I survived my college years, or that I ever graduated. Once Bill Havers and I linked up, we were in what was almost a constant state of wild abandon. Bill, who I am sure had a genius IQ, never studied. He attended class, but only cracked his text books the night before his exams. He would pop a Dexedrine pill, sit up all night and pour over the material, then go into his class and ace the exams. He did it constantly.
Naturally, Bill introduced me to the wonders of Dexedrine, which was a legal amphetamine that was relatively easy to purchase in drug stores in those days. Bill seemed to have friends in the chemistry department, and working in the area drug stores that could provide us with all of the Dexedrine we needed to maintain our studies in spite of spending most of our time in pure play. One of my Sociology professors called it a “prolongation of infancy.”
Since Bill was a music major, and a great banjo player, it all evolved into the creation of a Dixieland band called The Beaver Boys.
The Beaver Boys Dixieland Band got quickly popular. In addition to free concerts along the Chippewa River, where students gathered on warm nights for drinking parties, the band was starting to get hired to play for college and high school dances. When playing on campus, I was usually there with a date, dancing to the beat. When off on “gigs” at high school dances, I usually went along, but my role was much different. I recall once sitting hidden behind the piano, mixing drinks for the band members, while students danced on the gym floors.
We began collecting recordings of some of the great Dixieland bands. We had Louis Armstrong, Wilbur DeParis, and the Firehouse Five among many others. We also got interested in the cool contemporary jazz performers like Dave Brubeck and Errol Garner. After Bill saw a performance of a musical “New Girl In Town,” he became obsessed with the music, bought the album, and played it so many times I can still sing some of the songs and remember all of the words.
Living with Bill had certain financial advantages. Since his father owned and operated a grocery store, we were supplied with lots of foods, often at no cost, and sometimes managed to prepare somewhat elaborate meals in the Mogg Hall kitchen, located in a dank dark basement where we lived. That didn’t deter us, however. Also, we got our cigarettes in those days by the carton, at wholesale cost. And cigarettes were cheap then. We paid something like fifteen cents a pack. I was smoking Chesterfield kings, and puffing away on about two packs a day.
Bill’s quick mind was always making life interesting for the Beaver Boys. He was driving a 1950 Ford that he called the “Beaver Car.” That vehicle took us on various adventures all over Michigan and sometimes beyond. On one wild weekend Bill, the trombone player Tom Stroff and I drove across the Mackinaw Bridge, took Highway 2 west across the Upper Peninsula into Wisconsin, and spent an evening drinking legally in a country tavern in a county that allowed men to drink at age 18. Michigan still prohibited drinking until age 21. After the bar closed, we toured the area in a drunken state, attempting to find a stream or lake to fish. Then we ended up driving all the way back to Mount Pleasant, having had no sleep and quite hung over. We saw an amazing number of deer all along that highway and I wonder to this day why we didn’t hit any of them. We took a Dexedrine to keep us awake for the ride home. I remember that as we were driving into Mount Pleasant, Bill noticed that a full-length Three Stooges movie was playing that afternoon in the town theater. We parked the car and went into the theater. I think I might have slept through the movie.
That was the beginning of Bill’s slapstick period. He went out of his way to watch the Three Stooges episodes whenever and where ever he could find them. Two of the “Beavers” were renting an upstairs apartment down the street from Mogg Hall where we could hold drinking parties, and we spent a lot of time there. We would bring our dates, sit around drinking and talking and listening to Brubeck. That was the “in” thing.
One day Bill coaxed us into holding a pie-throwing party in that apartment. We spent the day collecting cheap throw-away pie tins, some kind of gooey substance to imitate a soft pie filling, then topped the mixture with whipping cream from those shake-up canisters. We had our “pies” lying all over the place and were sitting around, drinking beer, just waiting for some reason to start the party. That was the day Bill filled an empty beer bottle with urine, put a cap on it, and put his doctored bottle in the refrigerator. Later, when one of the “gang” showed up to join the party, and Bill’s special bottle was cold, he offered the bottle to this unsuspecting fellow. He took one gulp, realized he had been tricked, and went after Bill. He was rewarded with the first pie in the face.
The mêlée that followed was almost scary to think about. We had made a lot of pies and they were flying all over the place. We made such a mess that the guys renting the apartment had a terrible time cleaning up. The story got out and the landlord kicked them out. Thus our favorite hangout came to a sudden end.
Our adventures with Bill and his Ford took us on two other interesting tours across Michigan highways. One was a trip to Detroit where we attended a live concert by jazz pianist Errol Garner. I had a beard then, and was admiring the writings of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. My date for the ride was a girl I remember only as Carol. We called her Beat because she was attracted to me because of my beard. She checked out of the women’s dormitory and spent the night with us on the road to Detroit and back. We couldn’t go to bed until the dormitory opened again the next morning.
The other trip took us west to Lake Michigan where we attended a live concert by Louis Armstrong and his Dixie band in an old Fruitport ballroom. We had a carload of guys on that trip, and we were drinking beer all the way. Naturally the first visit once we arrived was the men’s restroom. No sooner had we entered, we were followed by none other than Armstrong and his entire band. They apparently arrived right behind us. Louie went into a vacant stall and closed the door. Gary Cardin had the gall to go up to that stall and ask: “Is that you Louie?” To which came the gravel-voiced answer: “Yeah, Daddy!” Cardin then proceeded to tell Armstrong that he played trumpet too, and was anxious to hear the concert. We were all quite amazed to think that we shared a urine call with a master musician like that. Needless to say, the concert that night was amazing. There were no seats so everybody stood directly in front of the stage, swaying and dancing to the music. We could get within a few feet of the band. I remember that Armstrong had such a large callous on his lip from years of blowing his trumpet that he had to blow out of the side of his mouth. He had a handkerchief in one hand that he used to constantly wipe spit from the other side of his face.
Spring arrived early during my junior year. It got warm and balmy about a week before the long awaited spring break and the students began partying all along the banks of the Chippewa River. One night the Beaver Boys brought their instruments to one of the parties. They all scaled separate trees surrounding one of the campfires and then played “When the Saints Go Marching In” from the trees. It was weird to hear the music coming at us like that. All of the band members took turns doing solo performances from their trees. It was just after that when the police raided the party and everybody scattered.
We were reading and discussing Mark Twain’s classic “Huck Finn” in one of my American English classes that spring. At least one of the other band members was in that same class. One night when talking about Finn’s trip on a raft down the Mississippi, Havers got the idea of a Beaver Raft on the Chippewa. The Chippewa was a great river to canoe on, but it ran a little too fast for a raft. And Bill clearly wanted the band to ride and raft and play. There was an old concrete damn still standing in Mount Pleasant that had once serviced a mill. Consequently there was a relatively large body of water stored behind the damn. We chose that pond on which to build and float our raft. By mid-day on a Saturday, the raft was afloat, the band was on it, a case of beer in the middle (for ballast) and we were using a canoe to get to it from the river bank. The band performed that afternoon as people from town gathered along the banks to listen in startled amazement at what was going on. We all got seriously sunburned but had a great day of it.
During one summer break, the entire band took a job at the Green Mill, a bar located just south of Port Austin near our hometown. That summer I took a job as a reporter at the Huron Daily Tribune in Bad Axe, just south of there. It was a wild summer. The band played every Saturday night. I was always there, enjoying the music and picking up girls for beach parties that went on after the bar closed.
One night my parents were away and the band gathered at the house. We rolled up the carpet and they set up to play in our living room. I think that was a weekend when we all drove up with girls from the college. I now find it difficult to believe that I was enjoying such an amazing life style in those days.
Sadly, it all came to a sudden an unexpected end with a crash. I was involved in a serious automobile accident that changed my life. In retrospect, the accident that nearly killed me probably saved my life.