All My Rowdy Friends are Coming over Tonight
All My Rowdy Friends are Coming over Tonight is one of those fast paced – get yourself in trouble – country songs. Hank Williams, Jr. sings the song about being a mess but inviting all his rowdy friends over for a party at his place in the woods anyway.
Don’t know about you, but I would have to have a place in the woods to have a party like that. If I even thought about a wild party with my friends in my neighborhood I’d be in big trouble. The houses are so close together that it would make for some interesting talk later on. Even though I frequently invite my neighbors to my gatherings, there’s only so much partying you can do in my neighborhood.
Now I do have parties and folks over that enjoy each other’s company…just no pigs in the ground cooking or lots of beer on ice like the song says.
My favorites are theme parties.
I once had a wedding party with some of the people I worked with. We were all married or were in-between marriages or relationships. We had a Greek wedding feast – complete with ouzo and homemade baklava – and brought our wedding pictures. Most brought their wedding gowns. A few of them could still wear theirs and modeled them for the rest of us while we looked on with a bit of envy.
Holiday parties are always fun to have. Valentine’s Day we had a party once when my son was small. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw his Dad dressed like Cupid.
Then there was St. Patty’s Day when his Dad, once again donned a costume. This time he was a Leprechaun…though I don’t think I’ve seen one quite like that since. I still have some of that costume that is over 23 years old now.
The biggest party, which was rowdy just because of the crowd involved, had 397 people come through my house in four hours during the Christmas season. Having that many people come in a house in four hours was a miracle in itself! Thank goodness there were lots of ways in and out. I cooked for two months before this one.
The weirdest party I had was at Halloween. I think everyone tried to out do the other in both costume and appetizers. The one food I just could not make myself eat was a green dip filled pumpkin with plastic bloodshot eyeballs looking up at you.  I heard it was good but I wasn’t about to eat anything that had eyeballs looking up at me.
There was also chocolate covered palmetto bugs that I refused to eat. Someone had carefully made the solid chocolate bugs from a candy mold. However, because I simply can not stand those bugs, I was not about to eat something that looked like one.
Who in the world makes palmetto bug candy molds anyway?
One of the most interesting parties was the one between Christmas and New Years where we all dressed up like cowboys and cowgirls. That turned out to be a really fun time since many of the people there really were cowboys and cowgirls. Come to think of it, we were a little rowdier than usual…but what cowboys aren’t?
These are just a few of the more memorable ones I’ve had. There are even stranger ones I was invited to – like the “murder mystery party†where we had to come as one of the characters involved in a murder.
Come to think if it, it’s about time for another one. Humh…what will the theme be?
I’ll let you know how it turns out.
My wish for you today is that you take some time to have fun in life and spice your parties up a little…but not too much. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with the neighbors and whatever you do, don’t say Joellen said it was ok to have a rowdy party!
~Â Joellen