On the Beach

On the sand beneath a pier at Daytona Beach, Fla., a group of collegians gathered, glanced surreptitiously about, and one by one held out their arms. At that moment a passing dowager spied the scene, stared for a moment in horrified silence, and rushed away to report what was certainly a wicked rite. "I knew it!" she gasped. "They're taking the needle!"

It wasn't a needle at all. One of the group had bought a special pencil, was marking the backs of hands with symbols that would show up under the ultraviolet lamp used by a local casino to check admissions to the twist dance that night. The entrepreneur was doing a rush business. Regular admission price: $1.70. His rate: 25-c-.

"When in Doubt . . ." This innocent bit of counterfeiting was part of Daytona life last week. As Easter weekend approached, some 15,000 college boys and girls had swarmed into town to roast in the sun, dance, guzzle beer, and "make out" (or, far more accurately, to talk about making out). On the beach a couple of fast-slapping guitar players started up a hot beat. Within moments, a score of college kids were doing the twist while cheering onlookers, some of them wearing sweatshirts marked "Property of Daytona Beach Jail" and "Stamp Out Virginity," raised their beer cans on high.

"Oh man!" cried a young fellow. "I came down here from Penn State on $40. I got a nickel in my pocket, and I'm having a ball!" He chugalugged his beer and roared: "When in doubt, drink and shout!" That night, in a motel room. 24 boys and girls twisted to the music of a four-piece combo, adroitly avoiding two double beds, a table, a sink, a stove and a refrigerator. Cried a University of Miami coed: "Daytona Beach is the best place in the whole world!" That was precisely the reaction that Daytona Beach had hoped--and spent money--to evoke. In recent springs, U.S. college kids had been heading like lemmings to Fort Lauderdale, about 200 miles farther south. But last year Lauderdale plainly showed that it was fed up with the hijinks, and authorities cracked down hard. No fewer than 800 arrests were made during Easter vacation.

Flying Squad. What Lauderdale was tired of, Daytona wanted--and it began a campaign to attract the collegians for the 1962 holidays. Daytona City Commissioner Stanley Nass got civic groups to agree to "welcome the youngsters, leave them alone and let them entertain themselves with the facilities we have." The city appropriated an extra $12,000 for its recreation fund. Nass hired Jazzman Dave Brubeck for a show, got together a music-making group called the Folksters, gave them a truck and made them a "flying squad." Last week, whenever Nass got a report that the boys and girls were getting out of hand, he put the Folksters onto the truck-bed and sent them out to do a show. Baron ("Buddy") Asher, onetime University of Georgia quarterback and now owner of the Safari Motel, toured college campuses as far as Maryland and Kentucky to offer free beer for parties and, in some cases, rebates on gasoline expenses for the trip south.

"Cool 'Em Off." To Daytona's delight, the experiment seemed to be working out well. "Down in Lauderdale," explained a University of Pennsylvania girl, "if you walk on the sidewalk with a can of beer in your hand, they arrest you. But here they give you a chance." Average daily beer consumption was estimated at three cans per girl, nine per boy (few of the collegians had enough money to buy stronger stuff), and only a few had to be arrested for disorderly conduct.

Predictably, some of the beer buyers were under age (one happy girl sported a false birth certificate that she got for a Christmas present), and minors could always get friends to buy beer for them. The main point, as one cop put it, was: "You treat them like adults and they'll behave like it. The other night two guys began directing traffic on the beach. We couldn't stop them short of arresting them, so we told their buddies, and they threw them into the water. That cooled 'em off and solved the problem." Says Commissioner Nass: "I've had more complaints about the convention of the American Legion 40 & 8."

Indeed, about the only sour note of the week came from the News, down south at Fort Lauderdale, which editorialized: "We're afraid the good citizens of Daytona will have to learn the hard way."

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