Applesauce!
It may be strongly worded, but that was my response to this morning’s ruling by the State Board of Education that forbade the hair-of-the-dog from being peddled at foot-ball games this fall to ticketed patrons.
Now, I’m no juice jockey, so my skin in this game is philosophical in nature, but I've found a nip of hooch prior to sporting events beds down distemper and gives my particular writing “the Pulitzer Edge”—so called because when I worked for old Joe Pulitzer at the New York World, we’d all get nice and tight before heading down to Tin Pan Alley to pen reviews of the latest Irving Berlin ivory tickler. Don’t get me wrong we never got half seas over, but we’d get slightly ossified to ply our trades.
So says this old-timey reporter that fans deserve the opportunity to get a bit hoary-eyed before cheering on their gridiron squadron—lest they be forced to bring their rubes to a less reputable speakeasy to get their tinctures and such. On that note, an excellent speakeasy is currently operating near the stadium if you are up to daring the constabulary. Just head to the 3rd Port-a-John from the left on the Northeast end of the stadium, wrap thrice in rapid succession upon the door and then sing the first 4 bars of “Come Josephine in my Flying Machine” while standing on one foot and you’ll be permitted entry. You’ll pay for it the next day, but can get a jorum of skee lickety-split.
But I digress. Sure, one can fill their wine skins or hip flasks with hooch, but in this recently post-Prohibition landscape many like to have a tipple without risk of getting pinched and if you’re ripe enough to pull a Daniel Boone...well, I'd tell you to stay out of public until you can control your rotgut. And for those that think that a little pre-flight white lightning disrupts the family environs, let me remind you that my mother gave me a nip of coffin varnish every night before she’d extinguish the kerosene and I slept like a cherub! What next? No Cold & Grippe tablets? No Bulgarian Herb Tea? No Pepsin Syrups? No Cherry Pectoral? I thought this was the U.S. of A, not Canada!
You may have won this round, State Board of Education, but you’ll pry the Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, Effervescent Brain Salt, and Grove’s Chill Tonic from my cold dead hands. I’ll take my business to the Port-A-John!