American childhood does have its benefits. You have little understanding of world dynamics. You are not a wage slave yet. School’s out for Summer. And if you live in North Dakota, you live in the safest place on planet Earth. So attending a Bogus Slogan concert should be a fantastic evening of entertainment.

Now cue fate and Rube Goldberg.

Originally, Prescott’s Music Hall, in Alhambra, ND, had been built as a World War II ammunition storage building. Used by the State National Guard, its location was well isolated from the general populace. Post war, civilization surrounded the building, and North Dakota officials removed all of the ordinances, selling the land & building to private ownership.

In the 1960’s, the building’s tenant/owner was an experimental bio fuel company whose process used large volumes of water, highly compressed, to “strip” clean the bio-matter. A massive water tank was built at the back of the property. The company went bankrupt and the water tower was emptied and abandoned. When Greg Prescott leased the building, he ran a 220 volt electric line onto the tower to run the huge Music Hall neon sign.

The sign tripped the circuit breakers constantly. So, Prescott re-routed the wires directly to the electric company’s vault located adjacent to the tank.  In the bottom of the vault, during the Korean War, an unscrupulous private had hidden bulk canisters of rifle powder, hoping to take them for personal use. Over the years, holes in the top of the water tower helped fill the tank with water again. Promoters, Future Happy Association, erected on top of the old armory, a 60 foot surfboard to commemorate the show’s end of Summer theme: “Summer’s Last Wave.” For their encore, Bogus Slogan used 5 fog machines and 3 large fans. Randy Hinds, 14, had climbed onto the armory roof and was playing on the surfboard.

Thus – an overheated capacitor in the vault ignited the gun powder. The following explosion collapsed the frontmost stanchion of the water tower, causing the tank to began to fall towards the armory. At the same time, an electric surge vaporized the Prescott’s Music Hall neon sign, making a large horizontal tear in the sheet metal from which thousands of gallons of water fell upon the building’s roof.

Randy ended up a block a way next to the Del Taco.  Witnesses say he “shot the curl” the whole way!