This coming Monday is February 2, 2026. It is the 46th anniversary of one the most fun and crazy nights I've had in my life. (If you know me, I am not known for having crazy nights) My college roommate and I came up with the idea to have a beach party in our living room at Fairleigh Dickinson University on February 2, 1980.
We started planning it at the end of 1979 and he made seahorse invitations that we gave out to friends. Over the winter break I was working at Burger King and my future wife saw the invitations, but I did not meet her until three months after the party.
We cleared everything out of the living room and put in a couple beach chairs, a blanket, and an umbrella. We had to have sand for the party so we bought some bags of sand and put plastic on the living room floor. The 250 pounds of sand wasn't a lot when you spread it out, but I remember it as being closer to 1,000 pounds of sand which is in the song below. (We'll never know for sure)
Steve had this extremely large poster of I believe Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. We put it on one wall and we had flood lights shining on it.(pictured below). In the sky we put blue tissue paper over the ceiling and we had a little airplane up there with a sign that said, "Don't Burn Use Coppertone." I am in the middle pretending to eat sand and Steve is on my left and another roommate Russ is on my right.
We had friends from high school and college and some girls from Burger King. Many people were wearing shorts and bikini tops since we turned the heat up. The temperature outside was in the teens. We played beach music, especially the Beach Boys.
The two funniest moments of the party was that night when some guys from our building knocked on the door. They were not prepared for what they saw when the door opened. The look on their faces while they were wearing heavy coats was priceless.
Four hours later we cleaned up and threw the sand into the garbage cans in the garbage room just outside our door. The next morning a number of maintenance people were talking very fast in Spanish and trying to move and figure out what they were going to do with the sand.
Below is the picture of a blanket that most people signed at the party. Many of the names are fading, but people who were there still remember it. There were about fifty people at the party.
It went so well that six months later on August 2, 1980, I decided to have a Halloween party at my home and a number of people from the beach party were there. That's another story for August.
Below is the song I wrote in college to remember this unusual and fun college event. The words go to one of my favorite songs, "Taxi" by Harry Chapin. Who would ever believe that 46 years later I would be driving people around in my car.
"The Winter Indoor Beach Party"
It was very cold on that Saturday, it was February 2, 1980. Fairleigh Dickinson was kind of quiet that night, but it was only eight o'clock. You knew there was something in the air, something was about to be done. But you didn't know when or where, but somehow it would be fun.
So you walked around looking for a clue as your fingertips started to freeze. The force of the wind pushed you towards building two, your teeth chattered and you sneezed. Then the wind howled and led you right next store, next to building two was building one. You didn't know what you were going for, but the cold made you run.
When the door opened at Suite 1 1-A you couldn't believe your eyes. There was nothing you could possible say, the beach was quite a surprise. There were two lights shining brightly on the poster that was on the wall. There was a little plane that was flying right by saying "Don't Burn Use Coppertone."
You stared in disbelief as you looked all around at the pails and the shovels too. And there was no doubt what was on the ground, there was sand in front of you. There were shorts and bikini tops all around, the umbrella was hit by a beach ball. The Beach Boys were singing in the background, a girl in a bikini was on the wall.
There was a thousand pounds of sand in that place, four hours later, it was time to go. It was a sight that you would have had to face, like nothing you'll ever know.
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