Montlake - 2021 and Way Beyond by William Goodrich Bellman Chapter 42 - Party Time

In the spring of 1929, my parents made a trip to Hollywood in hopes that Dad could make a connection there and get a job. Brother George was working at the Post Office and I was at Hamrick's Music Box Theatre. We decided to throw a party at our house. Jack Hildreth swiped some of his brother's home made wine. Someone got hold of a bottle of moonshine. I rounded up, from the Fifth Avenue Theatre, several Fanchon Marco Chorus Girls. Dan Lundeen--my boss at the Music Box, Clyde Moore--his assistant, George Vandewall--a neighborhood friend, Jack Hildreth, brother George and myself were all participants.

The party was progressing nicely, the radio music was loud, wine and moonshine was being consumed, and then the police arrived. "Either tone it down or we'll take you in," the police said. We did just that. Dan Lundeen had passed out in the back yard. We hauled him upstairs to the bathroom, filled the tub with cold water and dumped him in. He came to in a hurry (found out later that he had a bad heart condition and that the shock of the cold water could have done him in). George and I tried to go to bed that night, but all the beds were full of drunken guys and gals. Clyde Moore--the assistant head usher at the Music Box, was having an experience with one of the Fanchon Girls in George's bed so he and I ended up sleeping on the floor. The next week Clyde had his tonsils out and at the same time was circumcised. I asked how come both operations at the same time. His reply was that his experience in my brother's bed proved to him, once again, that he had to have that skin removed.

We could have gotten by without our parents knowing of the party, but someone had dumped the empty wine bottles through a broken window of the neighbors garage. When my parents arrived back home the neighbor told them of our noisy party and the wine bottles he had found in his garage. A neighbor a half a block away called Mother to report our doings. There was hell to pay for George and me.

There were several unopened bottles of wine left over from the party, which we hid in the basement, under the living room, in the unfinished dirt area behind a wood wall. Access to this area was via a wood door. It was a space that was never used and a good spot to hide the wine. In the years that followed the wine was forgotten, however, once in a while, when thinking back on that party, I wondered if that wine was still in it's hiding place and whether it had aged well.

Now switch to 1991: Cha and I were driving around Montlake. We drove down Lynn Street, and noticed a FOR SALE--OPEN HOUSE sign on my old home. We parked, went into the house; I told the realtor that I had lived there till 1937, and would like to look around. Many changes had been made to the interior by several different ownerships, and the basement had had its share. The dirt space where the wine had been hidden had been dug out, the floor cemented and the area made part of the basement. I was disappointed, but at least I could quit wondering about the wine and what it's quality might be after all those years.