Little Brown Jug

Earlier this week, we pretty well established that my grandfather drank a lot of beer.  He drank beer almost exclusively, but their kitchen cabinet held a bottle of Four Roses brand bourbon that was brought out on holidays and that my grandmother used for medicinal purposes. 

I can still remember her home-made cough medicine; made with Four Roses,  some herbs and a dollop of honey.  As a child, I thought it was a lot worse than having a sore throat.

Pop also kept a gallon jug of moonshine hidden out in the garage. It looked a lot like this:

Unfortunately, it also looked a whole lot like this:

When I was three and my cousin Billy was four, we found what we thought was Pop’s moonshine.

• Brown jug – Check!
• Smells awful – Check! 

We didn’t notice, and we couldn’t have read, the letters on the bottle that spelled out P-U-R-E-X. 

Billy took a big slug from the jug.  He started coughing, his eyes were watering, he started drooling and choking, and then he passed out.

I ran back in the house yelling that Billy was dying.  The adults grabbed him up and rushed him to the hospital where the doctors did whatever they do to a kid who just drank bleach.  Eventually, they brought him around.

Billy spent the night in the hospital, and the next week being fawned over – waited on hand and foot like the crown prince of Arabia. 

Nobody thanked me for saving his life. 

In fact, I got the whoopin’ of my young life just for being there.  That happened 65 years ago, and I guess that I still resent it a little bit.  Sometimes there just ain’t no justice.