THE CHAMPAGNE OF BOTTLED BEER

THE CHAMPAGNE OF BOTTLED BEER

 

I am not a beer lover, so I am clearly not qualified to discuss the subject of beer.  Still, I have never let lack of expertise get in the way of my opinions.  I do enjoy an occasional beer especially on a very hot day after working in the yard…ok, playing a round of golf.

My beer of choice?  Miller High Life, because it is the champagne of bottled beer.  Also because as a young lad my mom had one beer every day.  Every day at five o’clock she had a can of Miller High Life.  She referred to it surprisingly enough as her Five o’clock beer.  When five o’clock rolled around, it was a young Cranky who was asked to fetch the High Life.  As payment for the beer fetching, I was allowed one sip (gulp) of the five o’clock beer.  Anyone will tell you, the best part of any beer is always that first sip and so it is that taste, the first sip taste of Miller High Life that was seared into my taste bud memory.  Any other beer is just not the same.

What has inspired this beer post?  They do not serve Miller High Life in most bars and restaurants. 

Oh no they do not!  They all serve Miller Lite…eeech.  Light beers are like water.  They serve fifteen zillion imported beers, including several from Mexico.  Mexico!  Famous for water that makes you shit for days.  It is easy to find Mexican beer, Mexican beer that is brewed with Mexican water that will make you shit for days is served in every bar and restaurant in the country, but no Miller High Life.

There are craft beers sold all over, pumpkin beer, lime beer, wheat beer, beer with cute names like “Old Rotten Turtle Beer,” and “Shark’s Tooth Ale.”  There must be over 1000 different beers sold in this country, most sold in every bar and restaurant, but you cannot buy Miller High Life.

At one time this country had a brewery in almost every town and three or four beers sold nationwide.   There was Budweiser, Miller, Schlitz…and maybe Pabst Blue ribbon.  If you went to any bar or restaurant in the nation and ordered beer your choice was the local brewery beer, Bud, Miller, Schlitz or Pabst.

Now you cannot buy Miller High Life at any bar or restaurant.

You can buy Stella Artois which I found tastes exactly like Miller High Life, but it costs almost twice as much.  

There are a multitude of problems in this country; immigration, taxes, terrorism, crime, prejudice, the economy…

If you want my vote for President, promise me Miller High Life in every bar and restaurant.

I want a burger, fries, and “The Champaign of Bottled Beer!”

 

Cranky Old Man was not compensated in any way for this post...I will re-run it for a case if Miller's is interested.

NEVER FIRED A GUN

NEVER FIRED A GUN

I don’t think kids have toy guns any more.  Well they probably exist, but I’ll bet in most places they are frowned upon.  Guns are bad.  Guns kill people and animals, and they break things.  Some people like guns.  They enjoy target practice and hunting.  My friend Frog is always trying to get to try skeet shooting.  Can't do it. 

Guns scare me.

I probably don’t like guns because I was taught as a child to not like guns, right? 

Nope. 

When I was a kid I loved playing with toy guns.  I had toy pistols and toy rifles.  I played with other kids in the neighborhood.  We hid behind trees and garbage cans and shot at each other. 

We didn’t just yell “Pow Pow” or “Blam Blam” or even “Bang Bang” though I do recall being able to imitate the ricochet noise we learned from watching westerns, we had caps and cap guns.  Stick’em caps were the most realistic but you had to reload often.  Roll caps were the best, kind of like real assault weapons. Oh how I loved the smell of cap powder in the afternoon.

We shot each other, we shot imaginary Indians (that would be Native Americans) we shot Japs (sorry, we still weren’t eating sushi in the fifties) and we shot wild animals along with “Rama of the Jungle” on TV.  My brothers had a BB gun.  They shot little rubber army men and an occasional bird.  I came from a family of toy guns. 

I’ve never fired a real gun.  I don’t think either of my brothers ever fired a real gun.  My oldest brother once went deer hunting with some Navy buddies.  He bought a new rifle and other stuff just for the hunt.  When he had the chance to take down a deer he could not pull the trigger. 

Actually I guess Jim did have to learn to fire a gun as an officer in the Navy, but I don’t think he ever aimed at anything other than a target.

Well there was that groundhog incident.  My mom had a thing against groundhogs, but Jim missed on purpose.

I remember my pop once shot a squirrel with his friend from Louisiana.  He was depressed for a week.*

What is your point Cranky?

I don’t know, for some reason I remembered cap guns and started to ramble.  Maybe my point is children’s toys and children’s games do not necessarily lead to similar behavior as adults.  Maybe it sometimes gets it out of their systems.

My point is not that hunting is bad, or that people should not have guns.  If I lived in the sticks I would greet every stranger coming down my dirt road with a “howdy” and a shotgun by my side.

So there; no point.  I don’t like guns; I loved playing with toy guns.

So what?

*Italics indicate a wondering mind.

YOU SHOULD KNOW

YOU SHOULD KNOW

 

This is a Mrs. Cranky comment that throws me every time.  Looking back, I think this may not be restricted to Mrs. Cranky, but is a characteristic typical of many woman I have known…the “You Should Know” syndrome.

“Kare, where is the mayo?”

“You should know”

“But I don’t know.”

“Think about it.”

“I don’t feel like thinking about it, why don’t you just tell me?”

“Because you should know.”

“But I don’t!”

"You should!"

"Come on!"

“It is in the pantry.”

“Great, where in the pantry, there are like 12 shelves?”

“You should know.”

“What the “F”, why should I know?”

“Because a week ago before we went shopping, you told me we had a jar of Mayo behind the corn flakes on the cereal shelf…don’t you remember?”

“Obviously not and why didn’t you just tell me that 5 minutes ago, there’s 5 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.”

“Because you should have known and not had to ask in the first place”

“But I didn’t know, that is why I…never mind…’Third base!’”

“I know you’re a jerk!”