Licorice, sticky yams and Michelob

Believe it or not, there was a time in my life when I did not drink beer. I actually had to acquire a taste for it. Acquiring a taste for something is sort of a funny thing; you eat or drink something that you don’t naturally enjoy and through determination and repetition actually start enjoying the foul substance. People can acquire a taste for anything. I actually know someone that suddenly started eating black licorice after spending most of his life picking the black jellybeans out of his Easter basket. Let me give you another example. Near my work is a Japanese restaurant that my friends and I frequent. On the menu (which is decorated with a cartoon cat) is a dish called “sticky yam”. Although I have never partaken of the mysterious “sticky yam” (it even has stink lines drawn from it on the menu), my good friend Mr. Winkle had the courage to order it one night. Here is how he described it: “the sticky yam is a white, thin, viscous pudding of a dish more akin to mucous or ectoplasm.” As repulsive as this dish sounds, there are enough people desiring it to facilitate it being put on a menu. How do you enjoy a dish like this without "acquiring" the taste for it? Funny, I don't remember my grandmother making "sticky yam", although once I saw a bowl of oatmeal with a similar consistency.

I can barley remember the year after I graduated High School. It was 1985 and summer seemed to be the only season. Georgia was jungle-hot and so green you could taste wild vines and yard onions when you took a breath. To say that I was a lost soul was to use kind words. I was stuck halfway between being a kid and (like George Thorogood says) getting a haircut and a real job. Everyone seemed to have a plan but me. Even my way fucked up friend Mike was going off to the University of Georgia in the fall. ”How the hell did that happen?” I thought to myself in total disbelief. Dana, on the other hand, always had his shit together. Even in the first grade, everyone knew that he would be some kind of an artist. After high school, he attended the Art Institute of Atlanta and worked part-time at a local health food store. The tumblers that click off the passing of life always seemed to fall right in place for Dana.

1985 was the year I learned to drink beer. Saturday night’s usually found Mike, Dana and I cranking The Who and sharing a twelve pack of Michelob. A lonely cul-de-sac in an unfinished subdivision provided sanctuary from the cops and the southern sky provided the backdrop. We often talked about girls and rock and roll, but for the most part we engaged in sweet, sweet drunk-talk. The kind of talk where you make plans to go to Florida on spring break, or where you learn karate and beat up your childhood bully.

It was all I could do to finish my share of the Michelob horde. Many nights I ended up giving my last beer to Mike or Dana. I loved the buzz but my stomach was just not big enough to hold all that liquid (unfortunately, I no longer have that problem). “Do you have a buzz yet?” Mike would ask after every Who song. “Nah, not yet”, Dana would always say. Dana would never admit to having a buzz. To admit to a buzz was to admit to a lack of control, and I just don’t think he could do it. I on the other hand was not as prideful as Dana. “Fuck yeah, I am fucked up!” and “Oh man, I love Floyd, CRANK IT!”

I miss my Saturday night with the boys. I believe Einstein had a formula:
BEER+FRIENDS+ROCKNROLL+SATURDAY NIGHT = as close as common folk can get to heaven.