donal_mac_r

I grew up in a household where drinking was part of the social scene. It didn’t dominate it, but it was there. My parents were moderate social drinkers. A drink before dinner was routine. A couple of drinks before dinner was a special occasion. So was wine with dinner.

When I was a lad, and we had wine with dinner, they’d get out this little liqueur glass for me. I think it held barely an ounce. My dad would give me that much wine and no more. I would take ti-i-i-i-i-ny sips to make it last though the meal, feeling very grown up. I doubt there was enough alcohol in that amount to affect even an eight-year-old. When I got into my teens, they allowed me a full-size wine glass but filled it only halfway. And no refills.

At age 15 I took a windjammer cruise to the Caribbean. The ship, a 90-foot schooner, belonged to a school and it was the sort of arrangement where we became the crew. At that time (1967) the liquor laws in places like Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands were there but not stringently enforced. I was tall enough and my voice was low enough that I could “pass.” And pass I did. I learned a lot about international beers and rum on that trip. And I also learned that with a combination of “sea-legs holdover” and alcohol, it’s tricky to ride a motorcycle! (A mo-ped actually, being the chief mode of transport in Bermuda.) Did I get drunk? I did, though never to the point of “losing it.” My earlier introduction to alcohol and my parents’ attitude towards it made me less likely to go over the deep end. Some of my shipmates didn’t have that sort of background, and became actual sots in their mid-teens. I wonder what the long-term effect was for them. In my case, it was purely event-related. I had no ongoing urge to continue drinking after I returned Stateside. Been there, done that.

At that time, the legal drinking age in New York was 18, so a lot of high-school seniors went to bars, including me. Of course, we all drank beer. It would have been pretentious to drink hard liquor (not to mention a whole lot more expensive), and don’t even think about wine! Again, I didn’t go to any extremes during that time, mostly because I didn’t want to get caught on a DWI. The standards were not as stringent then as now, but even so I exercised caution.

It was in college that I started drinking seriously. The easy availability of beer at on-campus parties made it quite tempting to get sloshed. Although I got wobbly any number of times, I only really had one real-l-l-ly bad experience, and that was when I drank punch. I later learned what that stuff contained, and all I can say is that I’m lucky I survived.

In the Navy in the 70s, the culture was still very much oriented towards drinking, though the services were trying to back away from it. At one point I realized that I was developing a bad habit: I’d go to my apartment (which I only got after living aboard the ship for a year) at day’s end and pop open a beer, for no other reason than habit. I made a point after that to drink only when there was a reason for it. And such reasons were not rare – birthdays, promotions, beginnings or ends of deployments, hail-and-farewells . . . there were plenty of celebrations and observations.

I maintained that outlook when I left the Navy, restricting my drinking to occasions. The civilian world had fewer such occasions than the Navy, so I drank considerably less. And I didn’t miss it, really.

 Being married to a lady who doesn’t drink is a blessing in several senses. Being with her, knowing that she doesn’t really approve of me drinking, I’m less inclined to drink; but if I do, I know I have a designated driver, though one who complains about it. As Jimmy Buffet said not long ago, my drinking is infrequent and celebratory.

The one time she doesn’t complain is at events like the Pennsic War. There’s no worry about driving, and I don’t have to go to work the next day. Even then, I’m not usually a heavy drinker – though the last time I did a Flaming Dragon it bit me back, so it was probably my last.

For a few years, back in the 90s, I was a member of a Scottish cultural society called the Cuidach ó Corn ó Uisquebaugh – the Society of Tasters of Whisky. It was dedicated to the appreciation and enjoyment of single-malt Scotch whisky, which is a special drink indeed, with as many different characters as fine brandy. The most serious members kept notebooks in which they recorded the various qualities of the different brands. I was a bit of a dilettante. I enjoyed the different flavours and developed an appreciation of them but never became a connoisseur of the first order. You didn’t get drunk on that sort of thing – it was far too expensive! At the tastings, the whisky was served in tiny little cups. It doesn’t take much to get the taste and aroma. And there was usually a meal afterwards.

It was at Pennsic that there was an amusing drinking-related occurrence. We went to a social at the Royal Encampment, and there was a bar setup with tequila and all the appurtenances. Arriving before my wife, I went to the bar and “did” a shot of tequila, with the lime wedge and the salt. Several people were intrigued to see that I knew how to do it; I think there are people who don’t know that I drink at all. About 10 or 15 minutes later, I went back to the bar and did another shot. That was all, just the two shots. But by the time the story got back to our camp the next day, folks were saying that I’d finished off a whole bottle of the stuff! In my entire life, I might have drunk a total of a couple bottles of tequila, one or two shots at a time. A whole bottle in one evening? Not likely! Just an example of how stories grow with the telling.