Beer Blasts - 1960s & 70s

Beer blasts in the 60s and 70s were a huge part of Potsdam college life.  The drinking age was 18 and even the colleges held events where the beer flowed freely.  Greek Houses from both schools held blasts on their property each semester where the House provided the live music, beer and food, and admission was as low as $2 - for all the beer you could drink.  For more photos check out this album on the Potsdam Greeks United Facebook page.  Check out this post for details on what blasts were like in the 80s & 90s.

Some printed signs from the 70s

Handmade sign from 1977 blast

Some alumni remember:

• The early 70's had the best blasts. I remember pouring beers and you never shut off the tap until you had to change the keg.
• I recall $2 in '67 - '71. Beer blasts were a rite of passage that helped make Potsdam tolerable for 4 years (and a summer). 
• I remember going to 3 in one day! (As well as anyone can remember 3 beer blasts in one day...)   
• I like to remember the Southern rock bands, clucking like a chicken to have the grilled food thrown at you so you didn't have to wait in line, putting Schnapp's in your beer (yuk!), going to Sergi's after the blast... good times!
• I remember some very primitive (yet creative) toilet contraptions set up for some of these. Troughs full of lime, the girls' side had plywood with holes cut in for seats, I think the guys side was just a free-for-all. I sure don't envy whoever had to clean them up (pledges?) and now that I'm middle-aged I can empathize with the adult townies who frowned on the events.
• You waited in line to relieve yourself in a bathtub behind plywood walls at the Bay Street Blast knowing full well that the tub was connected to a drain line that went right into the River 
• In the early 70's $2 got you all the beer you could drink and all the hot dogs and Hamburgers you could eat for 4 hours. Hopefully the 100 kegs didn't run out.
• We at DU shared the "Junction Jam" with AE TT, but the best was the "Zoonies" held on the large city parking lot snow plow pile. King of the hill is better when you are drinking...lol!
• I remember one year at OPiO it was a mud slide....it was great...no one went home clean...and we were wearing painters pants...
• Got rain and mud at the Sig clambake one year. Ever see the movie documentary of Woodstock mudsliding ? They had nothing on us. Sig had a hill to pick up some speed in the slime.  
• The Zoonie Boonie in 1978/79 when it rained and the rolls of plastic came out as a free standing tarp ... It turned in to a mud fest ... my favorite!!!
• Beer blasts were the best...Tep-Omega, Zoonie Boonie, Crow Down, DK-Ago, Alpha Hoot...who am I forgetting? Oh Spring Fling at Clarkson!  
• The entire crowd was standing under sheets of clear plastic held overhead by one arm of the tallest people under them. (Their other arm being used, of course, to hold a beverage) 
• Does anyone remember the TEP Beer Blast - 1976 or 1977 when it rained and many of us spent the afternoon mud sliding down their side hill? 

1979 "Molson Marathon" at Theta Xi

Theta Chi blast in 1978 yearbook

1978