Sunday, December 05, 2010

Party like it's 1929!

On this date in 1933, the 21st Amendment was ratified, ending the criminal stupidity of alcohol prohibition in the US, a dumb social experiment that gave us organized crime, gang turf wars, the National Firearms Act of 1934, and the Kennedys. (Proving we Americans are slow learners, we then decided to give Mexican gangsters a license to print money by banning a plant that grows wild everyplace from roadside ditches in Oaxaca to hydroponic trays in the closets of college dorms.)

I'd commemorate the occasion with a bottle of champagne, but I'm in Indiana, which shares the dubious distinction with Connecticut and Georgia of banning outside sales of the Devil's Juice on Sundays while schizophrenically allowing you to get smashed at a restaurant. Only Jews, Muslims, and Seventh Day Adventists can get spontaneously likkered up at home on the Sabbath without engaging in the kind of careful advance planning necessary for Protestants and Catholics.

20 comments:

  1. Here in Ioway, if I happened to be out of beer and wanted one this morning, I'd be out of luck until noon. It's a sinful product until all the benedictions have been intoned.

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  2. Thank heavens on Sundays we can ride up the Monon on our bicycles, get smashed on IPA at the Brewpub and weave our way home down the trail, mowing down two hippies in the process, rather than sit at home gently sipping Chardonney listening to Bach.

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  3. I use the hippies to scrub off speed on the downhill grades... :D

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  4. "...mowing down two hippies in the process..."

    "I use the hippies to scrub off speed..."

    Ah. So tho' madness, there is (inadvertent ) method - and sport - in it.

    AT

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  5. Do not forget good old Tennessee too - I think we still have dry counties somewhere...

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  6. Off topic, but some of the comments remind me. I saw Shootin' Buddy yesterday and he said he had just gone to the "Hippie Store" to get deodorent. Something about theirs not having aluminum or something...

    I didn't think Hippies used the stuff. At least the ones I remember from my youth didn't...

    All The Best,
    Frank W. James

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  7. Just for me, not drinking alcohol worked very well for years and years and years - the problem with Prohibition was that it was a Government program to make us all better, kind of like the current War on Drugs - Universal Health Care and too many other fine ideas in the wrong hands...

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  8. Folks who drink should be prepared, not only for Blue Law inconveniences, but for the possibility that the booze truck might not make it to the liquor store some week.

    To that end my wife have some store bought wine and spirits in the cupboard. We also have home-made dandelion, blueberry, apple and hard cider aging. And we probably actually use more booze in cooking in the long run.

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  9. >> ... scrub off speed on the downhill grades.

    Not that I'm opposed to mowing down hippies, but how far do you have to go on the Monon trail to find a grade that requires scrubbing off speed? On Google Maps' terrain display it looks pretty dang flat. I do see what looks like a cut north of 75th and a fill north of 151st, but that's about it.

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  10. Prohibition also gave us Nascar and the National Firearms Act of 1934. All the more reason to hate it.

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  11. Kentucky still has dry counties too, one of which I currently reside in, which is why I make a point to always keep a reserve for snowy days and Sundays. The occasion should be commemorated with America's own whiskey, bourbon, rather than champagne, though. Tennessee whiskey might be acceptable.

    By the way, do you keep a point tally on the hippies? How much is one worth.

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  12. I believe in VA Sunday sales are county-by-county, but you can't buy beer or wine in stores after midnight statewide (I could be wrong, it's never been an issue for me). For the hard stuff, of course, you have to go to the state-run store - all of which close at 2100 and aren't open at all on Sundays.

    Like Anonymous @ 1001, I probably use more alcohol cooking than drinking. I also use real wine rather than cooking wine - the cooking wine is loaded with salt for the express purpose of making it undrinkable, which usually ends up being more salt than I want in whatever dish I'm making. With real wine, I can control how much salt goes into the dish.

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  13. Don't forget MN; we also can't buy on Sundays except for bars after noon. Uff da. Take that German immigrants in Stearns county!

    And, uhm, can we get a quart of the Minnesota 13 please?

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  14. As you no doubt noticed on your recent jaunt here, the Granite State has the monopoly on booze, marketing it in the most reasonable way possible: right on the highway. Two of the three interstates have both north & southbound liquor stores so as to be convenient for the thirsty driver.

    I have relatives in Laporte & South Bend; they laugh heartily at the insanity of our revenue-raising methods. Then again, we have no sales or income tax.

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  15. I know where to get beer on a Sunday.

    Liquor would probably take a trip over the NY border.

    There is almost always a little market around that will brown bag the beer quietly for a little extra non refundable deposit so to speak. It's a pain, but I remember when the markets themselves had to remain closed 'cause of the blue laws.

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  16. I love the fact that there's a chain of booze stores in Indy called 21st Amendment Liquor.

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  17. Reminds me, need to swing by the store and pick up a six pack after my concert... I'm out of beer! The horror!!

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  18. My little province here in the South Pacific is revisiting the past by banning the demon rum. So, the folks who can't afford to hit the resorts and resturants (most of the people here) have begun the age old tradition of making either "Homebrew" or "Steam". Sadly, both substances tend to make people act quite wacky.
    And you can imagine just what the local crime rate is doing!

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  19. Don't forget ARKansas. I got stuck there one Sunday and found to my dismay that you could only get a drink at "clubs". Argh.

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  20. I went to a local beach cafe here in Oz with friends the other day. They ordered cakes and coffee. Assured by the waitress (wait-somebody?) that they were "fully licensed" I ordered a beer. Nope! Had to order food with the beer according to the nanny state laws. OK, I'll have some cheese cake. Nope, had to have something that used a knife and fork. Said I'd need a knife and fork to share the cake with the others. Nope, had to have something like their 15 dollar bit of crusted bread and dip. Said no thanks, just water please. They brought the beer and dip anyway. Drank the beer and sent back the dip.
    Australia, love it one day, get real annoyed the next.

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