Saw a couple of former students tonight at the world famous Holiday Restaurant and in talking to them, I recalled an incident from many years ago that happened at school one fine day.  As I relate this story, I will not use the names of the students involved to protect the guilty. However, if any of these “gentlemen” decide to name it and claim it that will be up to them. I may get to tell this one of these days at a class reunion now that they are all adults. Just another day in life at school as a principal.

The incident started when it came to my attention in some manner that a young man was seen by a faculty member in the possession of a cold bottle of what had been beer though at the time, there was no beer left in the bottle. So, therein began the case of the evaporating beer.

As I retell this tale, bear in mind that rule number 1 for principals is that children will lie when they are in trouble. Rule number 2 for administrators, like good detectives, is to always, always, always, speak to any and all witnesses by themselves when possible to prevent said witnesses from hearing what the other witnesses might be saying. When following rule number 2, it can get downright funny to interview various members of the guilty and watch them try to match up lies when they have not had the chance to get their stories straight.

To start the investigation, I had the young man who had possession of the empty beer bottle brought down to the office to begin the process of tracking down the source of the beer. I will call this young man Boy #4. After some intense questioning of Boy #4, he stated that he had received the beer from Boy #3, whom he identified. He told me when he got the bottle it only had a few suds left in the bottom of the bottle, he was scared he was going to get in trouble and just emptied the few suds left out on the ground.

I then sent for Boy #3 and had Boy #4 wait in another room out of the sight of Boy #3.

When Boy #3 arrived, we again engaged in a rather lengthy discussion of how he had come to be in possession of said beer. Finally, he revealed that he had received the beer from Boy #2, whom he reluctantly identified. But, he also claimed that when he had received the bottle from #2, it was about 2/3s empty. He also claimed that he had barely touched it to his lips and had not even taken a swallow before passing it on to #4, again because he was scared of getting caught.

I then sent for Boy #2 and had Boy #3 wait in another room out of the sight of Boy #4 and Boy #2 who was about to enter the office.

When Boy #2 arrived at the office, I engaged him in a pointed conversation about the beer, asking him where he had gotten it from and to whom had he passed it. After some time, he finally gave up the name of the person who had given him the beer and the name of the person to whom he had passed it which was in fact, Boy #3. However, once again, his story about the beer was a little suspect as he reported that he had not drank even one swallow of the beer after he got it from Boy #1.  He told me that he only sniffed the bottle, which according to him was a little more than half full when he received it from Boy #1 and before he passed it on to Boy #3.

When I had determined that I had about as much information as I was going to get from Boy #2, I moved him to another room away from #3 and #4 and sent for Boy #1.

When Boy #1 got to the office, I began to question him pretty good about the source of the beer. At this time, I had no idea how many boys were really involved as I had simply backtracked from the one who had it last. I did not know if there were others or if this was the end of the line. As I engaged Boy #1 in conversation about the beer, his first story to me was that somebody that he did not know had driven by on the street close to the gym in a car with Dokken Rocks written on the side of the car and had handed the beer out the window to him before he even knew what was happening and sped off leaving him holding said beer in his hands.

Upon hearing this tall tale, I was very suspicious this was not the truth. How many people just happen to ride by a school in an old car with Dokken Rocks written on the side, holler at some kid that they don’t know standing by the road, roll down the window, hand them a cold beer and take off with nothing said in the middle of the morning?  I was pretty sure that I was witnessing a clear and present example of Rule #1.

After much effort and explaining to Boy #1 the absurdity of the story he had spun, he finally admitted that he had grabbed the beer from dad’s supply at home and had brought it to school with him that morning. But, like the other 3 boys, he claimed that he had not partaken of the fruits of the bottle. His story was that he had opened the bottle, started to take a swallow, got scared after it barely touched his lips and had handed it off to Boy #2.

Now this is where it was getting pretty funny to me. I had 4 eighth grade boys and a single beer. It was brought to school full, had been passed down several times with none of the boys admitting to having drank any of the contents and yet the bottle was now completely empty.

About this time, I decided it was time to get all of the boys together to talk. When I got them into my office, I retold each of their stories as they had relayed it to me earlier with all the candor that I could muster including the absolute denial of all of them to having drank any of the beer.

According to their stories, Boy #1 had opened the beer and handed it to Boy #2 without drinking any. Boy #2 had only sniffed the beer and had given it to Boy #3 who had barely touched it to his lips and had given it to Boy #4 who had reported the bottle only had suds in it when he received it and poured the suds out on the ground.

During this interview, I even told them that I had apparently witnessed a miracle that morning because there had been a full bottle of beer which none of them had admitted to drinking  that  was now empty. I told them based on what they had reported,the only explanation that I could come up with was the beer had totally and completely evaporated within the span of just a few minutes.

After a few minutes, a few sideways glances at one another, and some good old fashioned questioning techniques, they finally admitted to the fact that all of them had partaken of the brew in about equal quantities.

That beer did not evaporate after all unless you count the aroma on the breaths of Boys #1, #2, #3 and #4 after they had consumed the contents.

In the 22 years I was a principal, I had several incidents at various places related to school in which students were caught with some amount of alcohol in their possession or were caught with “whiskey on their breath” so to speak. However, this was one of the more humorous times because of the tales spun by these boys in an effort to keep from paying the price of admission to the party.