Almost every weekend, our crew -- a mixed bag of Chicanos, Mexicans, blacks, whites, Saudis and Kuwaitis, and that mysterious personage who all of us knew only as "The Dutchmen"(try as we did, we never learned his actual name!) -- assembled at our apartment complex for a game of volleyball. It became a bit of a tradition; the buckets of beer would demarcate the lines.

Among the more theatrical of the participants were my pal, Adnan, from Saudi Arabia, who loved to spike the ball into the face of The Dutchman, who was almost twice again as tall as Adnan; my pal Terry, with whom I am visiting now, and who in those days was a near-dead ringer for the young Marlon Brandon(Come to think of it, he looks like the Brandon of Apocalyse Now, today. Even shaves his head. The horror!); and me. My special flair was for sliding cross the grass on my belly to make the "clutch save."

But what Debbie and I became most notorious amongst our circle of friends, indeed the neighborhood, for was our regular full moon parties. Foolish children that we were, we organized our friends into a coterie of moon worshippers, complete with bacchanalia, howling, and the occasional excursion out to this forest waterfall we had discovered near Travis Air Force Base.

Debbie was a fabulous cook, and loved whipping up hor d'oeuvres; soon she had three other women in our building doing so as well. I was a servicable mixologist, having once tended bar. I loved mixing tapes with hours of music for these events.

LISTEN: To give you a sense of what our full moon parties were like, the following brush strokes:

• My pal, John, who everyone called "John the Mexican," even though he was only one of our group of Mexican friends, showed up to his first Fool Moon Party with his wife; at the second party he arrived with his gay lover Bobby.
  
  
• Coming through the sliding doors from our large balcony, where revelers were gathered, I happened upon a close friend in flagrante delicto on our living room floor with one of Debbie's co-workers, a married woman. I went back to Deb and let her know that she would have to wait a moment for her next cocktail.
  
  
• At one of these parties, Bobby, having determined that The Dutchman didn't like him and might even be insulting him, jumped from our second floor balcony, then ran across the lawn to the parking lot, where he proceeded to get into John's white Cadillac and start the engine. John, in a panic, jumped from the balcony, too, running after his friend screaming, "Bobby! Bobby wait!" The two of them burnt rubber leaving the parking lot..... "Did I really just see that?" Deb asked me.
  
  
• Terry, in keeping with his persona then, arrived at one of the parties with a new motorcycle. Our friend Harold, who had just been kicked out of his place by his girlfriend, Ruby, and was staying with us preparatory to moving to San Francisco, decided to take the bike for a spin. Terry was dubious, but he acceded to the request.... Less than half a block from our building, Harold crashed the bike into some guy ralphing --- while on all-fours --- in the middle of the street. It seems the guy had just left this "outrageous full moon party" he had heard about...

I was busily pursuing the writing life, a la Scott Fitzgerald. Relationships were being created and destroyed around us, scandals were being fomented, fist fights were adroitly averted, and our youths dissipated in the bacchanalian haze.