Fortress Party Retrospective: 1995-1996

Dear Friends,

The Hard Taco song for September is called, "Puff Piece." If the first 15 seconds of this song don't make your day better, you have my permission to throw your work computer into an open manhole.

It is with both sadness and relief that we officially announce the cancellation of Fortress Party 2020. If this comes as a surprise, you must be living under a rock. In which case I envy you, because that living situation would simulate the Fortress experience, at least a little. 

On one hand, it would be irresponsible to cram 400 people into a single-family home during a pandemic, but on the other hand, what if that home was modified to impair air circulation as much as possible? 

For those of you who aren't privy to the lowdown, Fortress Party is an event that Lauren and I have hosted every year since before Lauren and I met. This would have been our 26th consecutive year turning the house into a giant maze of sheets, crawlspaces, and fire hazards. 

Since I won't be spending the next three months hanging sheets, I've decided to use some of that found time to share the history and highlights of the last 25 years of Forts.  

We'll start from the beginning, and work up to the present by December 12, the day that would have been FP'20.

Note to those of you reading this on email: I will post most of these Fortress Party updates to blog and Facebook. The monthly Hard Taco digest emails will continue to have links to the newest Hard Taco songs, as well as links to the Fortress Party history updates.

1995 - The fort with a lower-case f.

This is the real story of how it started. I was home on college break, some high school and camp friends came over, and someone suggested we build a fort in my parent's family room. I think it was borne out of nostalgia, which is a funny emotion for a teenager.

We draped sheets over furniture and secured them with heavy books or photo albums. The highest point in the fort was the sheet that rested on the NordicTrack ski machine. 

The main activity of the evening was playing Trivial Pursuit. As you can see, it was Trivial Pursuit Genus I, but of course they didn't call it Genus I because Genus II hadn't been invented yet. Fortress Party was the same way... this night wouldn't come to be known as Fortress Party '95 until many years later. 

Slumber Party '96

In year 2, we made a few seemingly inconsequential choices that laid the groundwork for several Fortress traditions. First, we gave the event a name. And that name was... Slumber Party? When we rebranded it as Fortress Party the following year, corporate America took notice. "Maybe we can achieve greatness by subtly changing our name, as well," said the executive boards of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts, and The Facebook. 

By associating the party with the last two digits of year it took place, we created a filing system for all future Fortress Parties. At least until 2095, when the recurrence of a second event called Fortress Party '95 will cause banks to fail and planes to drop out of the sky. This is sad, but unavoidable.

Here I can be seen handing out job descriptions (Food, Plans, and Linens) to the original Slumber Party Steering Committee (SlumPSeC). 

Steve takes meticulous inventory of party snacks.

Jeremy shows me his expansive vision for the fort layout, which involves pouring several truckloads of concrete around the bay window.  Logistically, it turned out to be easier to drape sheets over furniture.

The phone. The floppy disks. The computer monitor. 

The fact that the guest list is just four people, and two of them are my parents.

Slumber Party '96. 

This is from the same angle as the 1995 picture, and you can see that the ceiling is higher. This established another longstanding Fortress Party tradition: The Fort must be bigger every year. 

I notice that three of the four guests shown in this picture were not among the people I called to invite. These were the first in a long line of unwanted party crashers.

With warmest regards,

Zach