November 30, 2012

My Miller Lite Story

Miller Lite Beer
Carolyn and I have been listening to this one CD in the car over and over and over and.....probably too many times.  In the first song of the album the group mentions Miller Light twice in succession, pretty much using the term to rhyme with itself.  As much as I like this group, this one thing just bugs me to no end.

Of course, while driving today and hearing this song come up again I pretty much try to sing along, substituting "Miller Light" as the ending to every line, rhyming be damned.

Carolyn asks me, jokingly, if I want a Miller Light, since I seem to be pre-occupied with that brew.  A wave of nostalgia hits me as I remember the last time I bought Miller Light......twenty-four years ago.  I'm forty-one now....so you do the math.


During the summer when I was in high school I usually worked at Boy Scout Camp.  I know, drinking and Scouting don't exactly mix.  For the record I may have been stupid, but I didn't do stupid things like this in uniform or in much any way that could could be mistaken as Scouts drinking.

Please bear with me...this is a story about people being even dumber than I was.

Sex with sheep isn't wrong....it's just baaaaaaaaaadOne weekend a friend and I were heading out of camp to go to a party.  Campers left on Saturday and the new groups didn't come in until Sunday afternoon, so Saturday night was party night.....as far away from camp as we can get.  There is a tiny one-horse town you have to drive through on the way out of camp.  It doesn't even have a stop-sign on the main road, but it does have a small bar.  I want to say it was called the "Dew Drop Inn".

We'd usually give it a glance when we drove by because you never know what you'd see.  Usually it was just a few locals, but once we saw a sheep tied down in the back of a pick-up truck.  Since I'm from that county I had to hear a string of jokes about that sheep, the locals, and some questionable remarks about what passes for fun in SE Iowa.

On this particular trip, my buddy looks over and says, "Isn't that your Dad's car?"  I venture a look and sure enough, my dad's brown Ford min-station wagon with a "I (heart) Stogdill Chiropractic" bumper sticker in the rear window is parked at the bar.  My old man wasn't a teetotaler or anything, but I figured he wouldn't be driving clear across the county for a dive bar.  I swing the car around to see what's up.

I wander in the bar and what do I find.....not my father, but my brother.....my little brother.  He's sitting at a booth with one of my classmates and they are splitting a pitcher of beer.  Now if you've done the math you'll know I was 17 at the time.  My younger brother is, by definition, less than 17 years of age at this point.

But Chris, maybe your brother just looks older......


An Approximation of my Brother's Letterman's Jacket
The legal drinking age at this time is 21, not 18, so he'll have to look a helluva lot older than he does.  For shits & giggles, let's just say he could pass for 21.  Maybe he was able to pull a fast-one over the bartender.  If this was the case then the bartender would have to be as dumb as my brother because the rocket-scientist was sitting there in his letterman's jacket.

You've seen those, right?  Has the high school colors on it with a big school logo or initials.  There is only one high school in the county and everyone knows the colors are maroon and gold.  His jacket has the school initials in huge letters and in numbers almost as large the year he graduates.  My brother graduates in three years, so unless he was held back five years or more in school.......

I will admit that I wasn't one to let an opportunity go to waste, so I bought a case of beer at the bar and left, all the while shaking my head at how stupid he was......and that was the last time I bought Miller Lite.

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