My 53rd birthday today has triggered a memory of my thirteenth birthday.
I invited a few of my friends over. I know Bones was there. I know Steve Jaynes was there. I"m pretty sure Sturt was.
The same thing happened each year on my birthday for several years. Because my birthday falls two days after Christmas, Mom and I would take stock of the Christmas gifts I had received and then see what I might like in addition.
On my thirteenth birthday, Mom did what she always did. She went up town to buy me a few things and, this year, left me and my friends alone to entertain ourselves until she returned.
One year dad got a "Gay Nineties" decorated liquor decanter and shot glasses. There was a kind of tree thing and the decanter when down the middle and along the sides were holders for the shot glasses. The decanter had a spout and an air pressure thing at the top. Push the top and out came the booze.
Dad kept his Tom and Jerry booze mix in this decanter. Making Tom and Jerry's just meant putting the mug under the decanter, pushing the top, and having easy booze to add with the hot water and batter.
Some one of us seventh graders decided to try this booze. Let's say Bones when first. One of us decided orange juice would make a good chaser. So, each of us poured out a shot of rum/whiskey/brandy into a shot glass, chugged it, and followed it with orange juice.
It wan't the first time I'd tasted booze, but it was the most I had drunk. I remember liking that stinging warm sensation of the booze hitting my tongue and firing down my throat.
It would make a really funny story if I could say we all drank so much of this booze and orange juice that we were puking by the time Mom got back.
But that's now what happened. We drank in moderation. We went back to playing Bingo or whatever we did while Mom was gone. She returned with a couple of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass albums for me, and we ate cake and ice cream and went bowling.
And we didn't get caught.
I know a good story should have rising action to a climax and end with a denoument. This story hit its climax when we drank the booze, but, sorry, sometimes truth is more boring than fiction.
Nothing funny happened. But, when it comes to drinking, we did get started young.
1 comment:
Fourth grade. Went over to Paul Henderson's house after school, We smoked cigs and drank whiskey from little airline bottles. Later I gave Paul a ride on my motorcycle and he had a pint of whiskey in his belt. I traded time on the bike for the booze. A few years later, in history class, I told a friend that I had a pot plant growing pretty good in my back yard. I harvested it and gave it to the friend. It hadn't reached maturity.
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