FUN AT REDFIELD RESERVOIR BRIDGE 1972 (under construction_

Squirrel's Party 1973

Squirrel, aka Harlon Bristol, had a few parties at his spread in Osceola over the years. This was one of the first ones, before it grew to a music fest event. 

I brought the Kodak Super 8mm cam with me of course, and at one point Nozzle, aka Dave Akkoul, who was a Syracuse Firefighter in those days, volunteered to climb up on top of Squirrel's house take some shots. 

This party was attended by Rats-only...

Send Anything You Can...

Send me photos or videos of Rat Pack stuff and I will post them here: send to skappesser@hotmail.com

Check back in a while. Now developing a new post : movie of a big party in Ellisburg in '74. Jim Abran rented the place for a while.

The Bust

This was a fun day! We shot "The Bust" at Community Park. Unfortunately the last part, the "punch line", was deteriorated beyond saving. Originally, at the end, after the cops send the hippies packing, the cops light up the doobie...

That's our '55 Volkswagen Microbus after I painted it. Brenda Maas' dad, Dick Maas let me use his heated garage during the Spring of '72 and taught me how paint a car. It took several weeks and a lot of tedious work. Dick was a great guy and really knew his stuff.

The tall thin boxes leaning on the The Van are 6 foot speaker columns being driven by an 8-track tape player. There was no such thing as "conversion vans" in those days, so this vehicle was "off the hook"...

Fall 1971 at the Beach

This video is the first movie I made.

The vehicle is a 1955 Volkswagen Microbus that my brother bought from Victor Huerta, an exchange student at SCCS from South America. Victor had driven it up from his home and decided to sell it here. I think Kip paid like $300 for it. You can see that the interior was decorated in the stars and stripes. Later I painted the exterior. You'll see more of "The Van" in future postings.

Appearing in this video: Mike Presley (Skeeter), Jay Reed (Stinky), Dick Samuels (Apache), Mark Liszewski (Goose), Tom Patell (Pads), Pete Kappesser (my lil bro), Kevin McDougal (Cracky), Sue Todd (Cavewoman), Richie Soule, and myself.

Rat Bytes

Here is a brief random collection of Rat Pack Uncut 30th Anniversary Edition movie clips.

Persons featured in this POST are completely nonfictional. Any resemblance to any person living (or not) might be coincidental. No similarity to any person either living (or not) is intended or should be inferred, but the viewer decides. Scenes depicted are sometimes fictionally staged, especially those that might not be, uh, "Kosher"...

Pete Basio's Party... Fall of 1974

In the early Fall of '74, Pete Basio had a party at his place. This party actually occurred shortly before the party at The Farm (see an earlier post on this BLOG).


The band "River" played for us. The lead singer / flutist and the rhythm guitar player of "River" were my roomates, cronies, and partners-in-mischief that year. I have forgotten their names too! In those days we lived at the Artillery Club, which I leased on North State Street in Syracuse.


They were good musicians, especially with songs by the Moody Blues and Cat Stevens. They rehearsed a lot at the Artillery Club... so there was always music there. They played gigs all over Syracuse, several for various student unions on different college campuses, and at clubs including The Firehouse and The Orange. Pretty coeds threw themselves on these guys a lot...
River's lead singer eventually "stole" the girl I was interested in at the time...her name was Carol Templeton...(I understand that Tad Blount eventually won her heart).

Me? During that time I was fresh out of college and working as an electronics maintenance technician at Hutchings Psychiatric Center. Goose (Mark Liszewski), Kooney (Mark Kuney), and Bruce Mothersell's Dad (from Greenboro) worked there too, in the same maintenance building. THAT job was a drastic failure best left forgotten.

Appearing in this video: Gary Sheldon (Garr), Barry Rowe (Wild-Berry), Kirk Kenyon, EJ Lapham (just a small boy), Jack Francher (Jumpin' Jack), Sig (forgot her last name!), "River", Joe whats-his-name on drums again, Frankie Arquette and Jimmy Beach on the swings, and Sharon I-forgot-her-name-too... Well, JEEZ, it WAS 38 years ago... ! Help me out here... for example Carol (Hilliker) Didden emailed me recently about The Farm posting to remind me that her cousin Starr's last name was Hilliker. Thanks Carol.


PART 1










PART 2