Giveaway: Two Seats at Tonight's Weihenstephaner Beer Dinner at the Libertine

I remember one time, probably  around 1975, my grandfather and I were in mid/coastal Massachusetts.  We were heading to the burgeoning hamlet of Billerica, with a load of stone for a new construction house.  I remember we stopped to get something to eat (I think it was The 99), and old papa was pounding Narraganset's like sipping water. So, we get back in the dumptruck , and he's HAULING all manner of ass through a traffic circle, and some poor f+cker in a 70's piece of sh+t doesn't doesn't yield to him, and crashes directly into the trailer (hooked to the dump truck). So Pa's like 70 ,and this guy is like 25.  They start arguing in that horrible Bahhhhhston accent. And then Pa beats (and I'm not kidding!) the living shite of this guy.....I thought the guy was dead.  The cops come; see what has transpired, send the guy to Mass General -and we were off! A year later he was just eff'ing pounding those Narragansett's in the woods at Sheepfold (Medford/Lexington Concord Woods), took his motorcycle over a jump, wiped out, refused to go to the hospital, and basically died not too much longer.  Just wanted ya'll to have FUN story to ponder. 

My grandfather would drink a few beers tells us stories. When he loosened he would tell these stories that would just make your jaw drop.  During the conversations he would tell  stories of bootlegging moonshining through Tennessee. Looking back on it I'm not sure how much was true, but it made for a for a good time. He would often be evading the police through the woods and stop mid sentence as his car was frozen over a creek. At that point he would fall asleep and I would have to wait an entire week to hear the conclusion.

The oldest drinker I know has got to be a family friend who I grew up going hunting with, Charlene.  The widow of my former pediatrician, she practiced many aspects of healthy living (such as being a 2-pack-a-day smoker until her death at 79).  She must have liked the way her lungs probably looked like on the inside, as she never hesitated to eat an extremely burnt marshmallow.  When it came to alcohol, Charlene not only kept up with but usually trounced her children and grandchildren.  Coming back to camp after each morning hunt around 9AM, Charlene was never shy to join in on the round of bloody marys.  After lunch and a few chores, she would be the first to start squeezing limes, because in her words, "these damn margaritas weren't gonna make themselves".  Back at home in the hill country, Charlene and her second husband would stay up till 4 or 5 am most nights, drinking gin and playing cards.  I learned a lot from being around Charlene, mostly to squeeze every ounce of fun out of life you can.

My grandfather is 95 years old, drink stiff manhattans almost every night, and arnold palmers when he finishes a round of golf

I met this old man at the San Fransisco Rose about 3 years ago. His eyes were squinty and he was hunched over the bar with his cocktail. I'm sure if he stood up his posture would not have changed. I had had a few beers and these shots our bartender friend there made called, black lagoons, those were trouble. I went to the bar to order another round of black lagoons and he smiled at me. I made sure to include him in that round. We started talking talking. He told me a lot of stories. The best one was when he told me about his days as a carni. Apparently they used to have show that featured Nutria Rats. He held up a candle and spoke into it like it was a megaphone...."They're live, They're real, They're in person. Come see the giant Nutria Rats!!!" He did this about 3 times in the next 45 mins. He gathered a crowd and stood up on his bar stool the 3rd time. It was amazing and I wish I could have seen him in his prime under the circus tent shouting about giant rats.

My grandfather who passed away in February was 92 years old and loved PBR.  Since turning 21 I tried to get him to expand his horizons and switch to something a little more sophisticated but he would not hear of it.  He drank his PRB up to the day he passed.  He was a wonderful grandfather and while I miss him, I still drink a PBR for him every once in awhile to honor his memory.  I don't really have any crazy stories to share I'm sorry!

My grandfather has to be the oldest drinker I know, with his 79th birthday coming up on July 3rd. I've been told he drank gin on the rocks until he hit his mid 60's when a doctor told him that gin was worse for him that vodka, and he subsequently made the switch. Ever since then, he has been a McCormick's on the rocks guy, every day at precisely 5 PM. No matter if I am at his house, or he was at my family’s for the holidays he'd pop up from his chair, grab a plastic bottle of McCormick’s and pour several glugs over crushed ice. He always makes one for grandma, but hers has a splash of water and half a lime.   About 5 years ago for Thanksgiving the family was all over at my parents house when we realized there was no McCormick’s in the house for Grandpa. A fraternity brother of mine was joining us that year instead of going home for the short break, so when he called to ask if he could pick up anything I told him we needed a bottle of McCormick’s, a strange offering for a Thanksgiving crowd with my family. It never occurred to me that everything would be closed on Thanksgiving day. My buddy went from room to room in the mostly empty fraternity house, until he found a bottle of Polar Ice, the only vodka he could find in the house. At 5 grandpa begrudgingly used that for his cocktail, but he was thankful he didn't have to skip his drink entirely.     Still have no idea why he chooses that stuff on the rocks, but it’s like clockwork every time I see him.

My Pe-Paw was an ornery, grumpy old Southern man. The kind of old man who drove through town and along the highways in an old brown pick-up – always at the same speed: 25 mph. The kind of old man who woke up at 5 am every morning and went to bed at 8 pm. The kind of old man who wore an army buzzcut and overalls every day. The kind of old man that had a chair in the living room that was his chair only and were someone to have the audacity to sit in it, he or she better get the hell out of it the second he walked in the room. My Pe-Paw drank Hot Carling Black Label for as long as I knew him (do they even make that anymore?). But what is legendary about my Pe-Paw’s beer drinking (in our family anyway) is that he actually preferred hot beer. And I don’t mean warm beer like it’s done in Europe. But rather beer that was kept in the back of his brown pick-up during those hot East Texas summers. And he would sit out in the backyard for a couple of hours out of the day underneath a makeshift canopy and drink that hot beer can after can. Day after day. Hot beer after hot beer. I marvel at such a concept even though I’ve now learned to appreciate a good room temperature stout beer. But hot? I also think that my Pe-paw would laugh at the “high-fallutin” beer drinking I do these days. And perhaps slightly disappointed that I eschew American beers in favor of import. He was nothing if not Texan first and American second. But I think overall he would be proud that his granddaughter loves beer and even though I didn’t inherit his preference for hot beer, I at least inherited his love of a (cold) beer on a hot summer day.

I punted a huge chocolate cake in the Anatole parking lot on my 30th. Woke up the next morning, leaving, and employees everywhere trying to calm down the folks whose car I got cake all over. Ironically, next Friday will be my 40th...Time flies!