Sport Drinking for All

I recently celebrated over 30 years sober and I have to say I don’t miss drinking at all. I DO, however, miss partying. Some of the most fun times I ever had was when alcohol was involved. Although a Buddhist monk friend named Dacey once advised me, when I was talking about our having drunk our way through New Orleans during Mardi Gras and spouting off about what a good time we had had, that “You probably only thought you had a good time.” Dacey and his wife were staying for free with us at the time but I think I kicked them out soon thereafter. Who needs a friggin’ monk to rain on your favorite Mardi Gras parade memories?

Thinking back, there were so many incidents that involved alcohol. There was the time at a bowling tournament where booze and my friends convinced me it would be a great idea to take the top off my ’57 Thunderbird, line it with plastic bags, and fill it with cheap wine, vodka and fruit punch. Somehow there was no lasting damage to the top at all but I’m pretty sure the motel in Bakersfield will never be the same, what with people standing on the top railing on the second floor and competing to see how far out into the ground-level pool they could jump. We got kicked out of the motel eventually but, heck, the tournament was just about over and it didn’t hurt that much to sleep in the T-bird for one night.

Or the time that Carlos and I took his dad’s Crown Vic from the cabin on Harrison Pass down to the shores of the Ruby Marshes in Nevada to go fishing. It was February, snowing and it was so cold the dogs were wearing cats and we had to chop up the piano for firewood, although we only got two chords. It was so cold I caught a pickpocket with his hand in my pocket, just trying to keep it warm. It was so cold that…..well, you get it. It was cold and windy and snowing and icing and just friggin’ about as nasty a day as you could imagine. And the Marshes have NO cover, not anywhere, so we were left to sit on the banks and huddle up, fortunately with a full quart of Jack which Carlos’s dad had considerately left in the trunk of the Vic.

When the quart was gone, Carlos, who had driven down from the cabin, was clearly too drunk to drive back. He apparently thought the same of me. The only answer was to fight over the keys, which we did, eventually sliding into a small pond immediately adjacent to the Marsh where we were fishing, hooting and hollering the whole time. Carlos was and is bigger than I and he won, taking the keys and the Vic back home while I crawled out of the pond, my clothes already freezing on my body, but laughing hysterically as if that was the finest thing that had ever happened to me.

Fortunately, a kind farmer in an old rusty green beater of a Studebaker truck, was willing to give me a ride back, although he wasn’t quite kind enough to let me sit in the front with him. I still can’t see what difference that would have made given the condition of his truck, but it was his truck.

Even more fortunately, Carlos and I arrived at the cabin about the same time and just in time to stop Miguel, his father, and his best friend Burr from drawing on each other from ten paces in order to claim the affections of his friend’s wife, Susan, whom I remember as being a bit unattractive and probably of American Indian descent, if that latter means anything. I’m sure it doesn’t, other than to enhance the wild west vibe a bit.

Later I remember setting one of their outhouses on fire and us all singing songs, but that could have been a different trip. They tend to blur together a bit.

‘Course I’m not the only person who has personal experiences with alcohol. There’s the time that we all decided to go Christmas caroling in Palm Creek in AZ. By this time I hadn’t had a drink in decades but pretty much everyone else got into it, demanding and getting a drink about every second house. Eventually the drinking took its inevitable toll on Harry, who climbed out of his golf cart, pulled down his plaid pants, held onto the stop sign pole and began peeing on the cactus. Which would not have made much of a story except his hand began slipping on the metal pole and his legs collapsed under him, seating him in the cactus, bare-bottomed as a babe except for the spines. I’ve had dogs in porcupine fights that didn’t look as bad as his flabby old white butt, but thankfully his bride of many years had a good pair of pliers and a nursing background and soon set things right.

Which reminds me of a final story of several friends who decided after ingesting a fair amount that they needed to chase a few sheep across a pasture. I didn’t participate as it seemed like a very bad idea, especially given that this was very deep into the night of a thousand scotches, for them at least, meaning that no matter who I went with I’d be shotgunning with a drunk. I’m glad I didn’t. As the story was recounted to me later, one of the cars, a beautifully restored ’63 Chevy Corvair Monza Spyder, was apparently very close behind a bewildered and terrified sheep, which turned left and leapt over a little gully.

In the words of the owner the next morning, “Next thing I knew, I was sitting next to the car in the ravine. The wheels all popped off the axles. I’ve got no idea how we are gonna get it out.”

I personally don’t drink but I love alcohol. Without the impact of demon rum, how would I get such great stories?

This week we are traveling in New England, looking at the colors of the leaves. It’s amazing that I’ve never done this before; clearly, I should have. I’ve got a lot more to tell you, but it’ll have to wait for a different time.