A Gin Memory....

It’s a warm summer late afternoon, and I notice the bottles of tonic water sitting on the floor by the fridge. They’ve been there untouched since Emily came home last Thanksgiving, the thought of a cold G&T sounds pretty good right now – particularly with vacation starting tomorrow. Even more important, Donna picked up some fresh limes at Whole Foods. As I’m pouring the jigger of gin into the glass with ice cubes, I catch the distinctive smell of gin, and I’m transported back to an earlier time. Funny how those olfactory memories are so deeply imprinted…..

It’s the summer of 1962 and four of us are piled into John Prillaman’s Ford and heading to the Drive-in movie on old Route 66 just outside Springfield. Three of us hide in the trunk so we only pay admission for one car and one adult. John stole a fifth of gin from his dad’s stash (Gilbey’s), but we had no mixer. I went to the concession stand and brought an extra large orange drink. We couldn’t mix all the gin and all the orange drink, so we’d each take a swig of gin and “chase it” with a swig of orange drink. Yummm!! Well, an empty stomach, 5’7” and 115 lbs, and a short hitter anyway, I was the first one roaring drunk…but kept my turn in line. Finally, it started to rain and we decided to head home. We had been sitting on the hood of the car, and I decided that I could be better windshield wipers than the blades, so positioned myself on the roof using my arms as wipers as we exited the lot. Down MacArthur Boulevard, there I was on the roof and totally drunk. A future organ donor if there ever was one! And I was getting the whirlies. My friends dropped me off in the front yard of our house (2112 Westview drive) and luckily Merle and Eileen were already asleep. I stumbled down to my bedroom and laid down on my bed, but every time I closed my eyes, the room spun around and I got nauseated. Finally, I thought the best place to be would be in the bathroom close to the porcelain “god”. Soon, I was tossing my cookies and was none too quiet about it…waking Ron. He saw the fix I was in and promptly did the brotherly thing of waking dad and telling him I was sick (duh!). Dad saw my predicament and instantly diagnosed the condition. “What were you drinking tonight?” he asked. “Nuffing…” I said, “Just orange drink. Must not have agreed with me.” He threw me in the shower and turned on cold water, toweled me off, and put me to bed.

In the morning, dad woke me at 6 am and suggested I do some weed pulling in the yard before breakfast. I was INCREDIBLY hungover!! I also realized I was in deep shit, so I did it. At 7, he called me in for breakfast. There at my place was a plate of eggs and bacon and toast, and….. a large glass of orange juice. I was soooo thirsty, I guzzled the OJ straight down, only to discover a millisecond later that he had mixed my OJ 50:50 with GIN!!! OMG! I raced to the bathroom and started throwing up all over again…and again smelled and tasted gin! He was chuckling and clearly enjoying his devilish sadism. “Hope you learned a lesson,” he said. Boy, did I! It was at least 25 years before I could even think about drinking gin… in any form.

Well, that last gin and tonic was so good, I think I’ll make another….hope Donna gets home soon.

EUROPE!! LOOK OUT!! PART 3

You missed me didn't you. OK, well here we go. After the beers in our room in Luxembourg, Stan and I decided to canvass the town- you know-a sweep of opportunities. We were 16 and we were "HOT"- kinda... Well, we went into a restaurant in the city center- where we expected the action to be. Well, turns out, there is a multi national summit in Luxembourg. Sixteen year old boys were nothing more than street refuse. Well, we met a nice guy who, interestingly was an American. We had a great conversation with him. He was with Dean Rusk, Sec. of State of the U.S. and here for the "whatever they called them then"meetings. We pretended to be nonplussed by this and hoped him the best. Tomorrow, Belgium.... little did we know we would be sleeping on a park bench in Antwerp. How the high and mighty can fall.....

Homemade Ice Cream

Yesterday, Donna made ice cream in our Krups Automatic Ice Cream Maker. Not like the old style bucket with ice and rock salt variety, but easy, clean and noiseless (almost). The container must not have been cooled sufficiently because the ice cream came out too slushy, so we put it in a Tupperware and put it in the freezer. Today, that ice cream is like a brick....tasty, but still the consistency of concrete. It brought back memories of homemade ice cream from childhood....ah yes.....reliving the delight of rock hard vanilla ice cream!

Making vanilla ice cream (was there ever another flavor?) in the crank style freezer was a summertime high point growing up. We may have skimped a bit on the heavy cream, but not the sugar! We would all take a turn cranking the handle for what seemed like hours. Adding ice, adding rock salt, draining some water, adding ice, adding rock salt....you get the idea. All of us, mom included, were a bit over-anxious for the taste of that frozen delight, to actually wait until the cranking got real difficult. Just a bit harder was enough for us! We'd bring the metal container out of the icy brine and pop off the lid, and each would take a spoonful of pure vanilla heaven....a bit like grainy/gritty soft-serve. We would fight for who got to lick the beater. Then mom would put the container in the freezer to let it "finish". By the next day, the ice cream would be like a rock! We'd almost need a chisle and sledge to chip off a few flakes of the golden delight. It didn't deter us, however, and I think we assumed this was how it was supposed to be. The added energy expenditure, I think, kept us slim (?skinny) in spite of the calories consumed. (Well, maybe not EVERYONE). It probably lasted longer that way as well. We'd chip and dig until we would get a small bowl full, and then add the topping of choice - which in our house was Nesquik powder. We never had REAL chocolate syrup, although we would occasionally have butterscotch because it was dad's favorite. Sliced bananas and a little whipped cream from the spritzer can, and we had a banana split!