“…always where men came together to exchange ideas, to laugh and boast and dare, to relax, to forget the dull toil of tiresome nights and days, always they came together over alcohol. The thousand roads of romance and adventure drew together in the saloon, and thence led out and on over the world.” John Barleycorn My friend Jack is a drunkard. The drunkard is just one of many types of drinkers. There are the imaginative and the brain-limp, the jesters and the solemn, the functional and the dysfunctional. There are those who stagger with a wobbly, wide legged stance, chin up, chest out, slurring cheap, aggressive words to uneasy ears and then there are those who find dank corners in a favorite dive to fritter away their time in mysterious silence. There are well-to-do-drinkers and nothing-better-to-do-drinkers. There are even some whose bodies reject the drink, but will still occasionally wet their lips for the inherent fellowship the drink so slyly brings with it. There are bingers, barflies, hopheads, and hooch hounds. But the drunkard stands alone amongst them all—a back as straight as an arrow and a tongue the drink can’t tie.
The drunkard could drink them all under the table and never miss a step, a laugh, or a witty word. He never stumbles because, as Jack puts it, “he cannot be conquered by the drink.” He says he knows this because “he simply falls asleep at night after all the others have fallen to the floor.” A drunkard never turns down a drink and he’s always quick with good advice for friend, foe, or stranger—as if all of Life’s answers really are at the bottom of his bottle. Come to think of it, next time I see Jack I’ll have to ask him what he’s drinking. Comments are closed.
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