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.
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