Why I No Longer Drink

by Nancy Grossman-Samuel

     Does Whiskey go bad?

     I recently cleaned out a cabinet and noticed I have about ½ a Costco sized bottle of Early Times. I bought it the early 90s. I know that because it’s resided with me in at least three different residences, and I've been in South Orange County since about 1993. I bought it not because I drink, I rarely drink, and when I do it's a little wine, or if I'm feeling feisty, Kahlua, but I purchased the whisky because a friend extolled the virtues of a hot toddy as a soothing and healing flu remedy.

     Though I didn't need it at the time, the conversation came back to me when I was in Price Club (I told you it was a long time ago), and I thought, heck, why not get some? I'm sure it must have been on sale!

Though I rarely got or get sick, when I do, I am willing to try just about anything to get well quickly. I remember getting a really bad flu, and saw, while looking for soup, the bottle of whisky. I made hot tea with lemon and honey and a dash, well, maybe more than a dash of Whiskey. I think I had several of these drinks which actually tasted pretty good, and it actually worked. Knocked me out so I got the sleep I needed, and when I woke up, I felt human again.
     I think the reason the whiskey is still in my cabinet is two-fold. First, a vicarious learning. While visiting the east coast in 1969, the summer before my senior year in high school, I got to go to Woodstock. We even had tickets though by the time we got there the fences were down. After a day and a half I came back to my grandmother's house late at night to find the house smelling like vomit, and my sister’s best friend in a tizzy because my sister was out of her mind drunk. I didn't understand why my parents or grandparents weren't up. It was a horrible mess.

     I guess I don't learn that well vicariously and so the other was a more personal lesson. My college boyfriend was going to pick me up for a party on St. Patrick's day in 1972. I knew he'd start drinking early in the day because he loved to drink and he was Irish.

     Though underage, a friend of mine agreed to purchase for me a small bottle of rum and some cola. I mixed myself some drinks, sat on the stone bench in front of the sorority house, got smashed, rowdy and eventually, when Oaks was over an hour late - maudlin.

     Finally, two of my sorority sisters decided it was time to get the laughing/crying/singing spectacle out of the public eye. With one sister under each of my arms, and tears running down my cheeks, I lauded and extolled their virtues as caring, loving, RELIABLE friends.

     They deposited me in my room with a box of crackers. I was told to eat them. I said I wanted to go downstairs to dinner, but they said I was not allowed to in my condition. They would bring me something later. Two rejections in one night. So I ate some crackers with tears running down my face until I looked up startled by the realization that the room was spinning. I barely made it to the bathroom where I spent the next few hours hugging and spewing into the porcelain god.

     Exhausted, I finally lay face down on the cool bathroom tile, but not long after I was again escorted to my bedroom.

     The next thing I remembered was Oaks' low, loud, gravely voice calling out my name.

     He had somehow managed to get upstairs into the bedroom area and was pulling me out of bed. Against my better judgment I got dressed as he got ushered back downstairs grinning and flashing his smiling Irish eyes at my less than stern sorority sisters.

     We stumbled out the back door and through the bushes separating our houses, not sure who was holding up whom.

     After about 30 minutes of dry heaving in the back yard, and not having a clue where Oaks had gone, I crawled back through the bushes, and up to my room where I slept until I awakened with my head pounding and a promise, which I have kept, to never do that again.

Typewriter

"What an unusual typeface," said my English teacher.  "I've never seen a student turn in an essay typed in script before."

"I used my grandpa's typewriter," I said.  "It's different."

"And the paper's different, too," she said.  "Why are the pages so short?"

"I used my grandpa's stationery, and decided I should cut off the letterhead before I turned in the essay."

"Why?"

"He sells gravesites for Forest Lawn Cemetery."

She burst out laughing, and I did too.  "Thank you for your consideration," she said, "and for making my day."

I remembered that conversation as I looked at the filthy, battered metal carrying case that still held my grandfather's typewriter after all these years.  I unlatched the case and smelled cigarette smoke.  His last Chesterfield had been stubbed out in 1978, probably minutes before the massive heart attack that took him out.  Somebody, one of my cousins, had screwed around with the machine after Grandpa was dead and jammed the keys.  My father had insisted that they mail him the typewriter, since he didn't have anything else tangible to remember his own father by.  Maybe they sabotaged it deliberately before they mailed it, or maybe they jacked it up as soon as they got their hands on it -- who knows?  But there it sat, yellowed with age, broken and useless.

I sighed and latched the lid back on the case, picked it up by the frayed leather handle and set it aside with the mountains of stuff I'd pulled out of closets and drawers.  Dad was dead, and we were all deployed around his house, emptying every nook and cranny and seeing what was what.  He had given us fair warning.  "Your stepmother and I moved into this house in 1988, and there are boxes in the garage that were never unpacked.  I have no idea what all is in there -- books for sure, but I don't know what else.  Good thing we paid the moving company so much money to pack and bring it all -- must have been really important stuff, huh?"  My stepsister and her husband will sort through what's left in the house that once belonged to her mom and my dad.  They will keep what's useful or nostalgic, and get rid of the rest.

Feeling motivated by cleaning out my dad's closets and drawers, I opened my filing cabinet, plugged in the shredder, and decided to make things easier on whoever has to eventually square my things away.  Surely I could shred supporting documents from ancient tax returns?  Into the shredder went old SBC and MCI phone bills -- those companies are long gone; Washington Mutual, Home Savings, Corus Bank, Countrywide statements -- they're gone, gone, gone, gone; C.A. Robinson in L.A. -- gone; Advanta and Providian and other purveyors of Visa and Master Cards -- gone, done and dusted.  I shook my head.  My filing cabinet was a crypt full of dead companies, haunted by flimsy paper ghosts of businesses past.

Maybe that's why I left the typewriter behind -- my grandfather's, then my father's -- without a twinge.  Everything has its time, and everything passes.  Someday, somebody will look at whatever computer I was using when I bit the dust, shake their heads, and let Goodwill or the Salvation Army have it.

However, I have more photographs I found while searching through my father's lifetime of things, and I will put them in albums with the rest of my old photos just for my own sake, despite knowing that when I'm gone, they'll go into rubbish bins.  So it goes, to quote Kurt Vonnegut -- and my crumbling paperback copies of his Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, the ones I bought back in high school, the ones with my name and little peace signs on the inside covers, back when I was typing essays in fancy script on my grandfather's Forest Lawn stationery -- they'll end up in the same rubbish bins.  So it goes.  And so it must.

(Meanwhile, gather ye Thai food while ye may...)  ;)


Susan Cameron, copyright 2013

Big Red

Emma's back today and she's remembering her Uncle Harlan.

By Liz Zuercher

My poker-faced Uncle Harlan was a tough nut to crack.  Short and wiry with wavy blond hair and fine long fingers, he wasn’t physically imposing, but I remember as a child being a little leery of him anyway.  Maybe it was because he didn’t say much, and I had to strain to hear him when he did speak.  Unless he was talking about his airplanes.

A bachelor approaching fifty, Harlan might have been married to his meticulous work as an optician grinding and polishing lenses every day.  But he was definitely in love with the model airplanes he built at his garage workbench. Uncle Harlan’s eyes sparkled when he talked about his models.

When a new plane was ready – joints smooth, paint glossy, motor installed – he’d take us kids to Flyer’s Hill, a spot overlooking the Pacific where all the modelers flew their planes, and he’d test out his latest creation.

Uncle Harlan was particularly excited about trying out Big Red.  Since he’d never named a plane before, we knew this one must be different.  And it was.  Big Red was his largest plane yet, his masterpiece, he said.  He even bought a special engine by mail order. 

“Paid a fortune for it,” he said.  Another first for Uncle Harlan.

After months of construction, sanding, painting and fine-tuning, Big Red was ready for her maiden flight on Uncle Harlan’s fiftieth birthday.  The whole family gathered at Flyer’s Hill for the occasion.  He started up the engine, held the remote control box in both hands and sent Big Red off into the air to cheers from all of us.  After a stutter from the engine that left us breathless, the plane climbed, circled and swooped in answer to Herman’s commands.

“Isn’t she a thing of beauty?” Harlan said with pride.

We all nodded.  Big Red was indeed glorious.

Then, without warning, Big Red took on a mind of her own.  Instead of completing the loop back to us that Harlan signaled with the remote, Big Red veered off toward the ocean.  Harlan wiggled the toggle back and forth trying to steer Big Red back to land, but she just dipped a wing and headed farther out to sea.  We watched in horror as she flew out of sight.

Uncle Harlan stared at the horizon, heaved a big sigh and packed up his gear.  “Well that’s that,” he said.

As we all trouped to our cars, no one said anything.  What was there to say about such a loss in the family?

Not long after that Uncle Harlan surprised us all by marrying Martha Springer, a large jolly auburn-haired woman who was five years older than Harlan and also had never been married.  He gave up flying model airplanes and took up making plastic model tanks instead, filling three curio cabinets with them.  None had names or engines. 

“At least they won’t get away from me,” he’d say with a far away look in his eye and a catch in his voice.  Maybe he wasn’t so tough after all.