Brothers Born under different Bottles

Dear Friend,,

We were both born under the sign of the bottle, you and I. They say such things skip a generation. Indeed they do. Addiction? Not so much. Addiction, as we agree, is a part of the human condition. Our sainted parental units both subsidized the state of North Carolina during the Second War of Northern Aggression when Uncle Sam tried to wage ware against lung cancer.

But our grandfathers? I remember visiting your grandfather's basement. Proudly displayed around the tops of every cabinet and every shelf, a Collectible Jim Beam Decanter. Empty or full? No idea. Definitely off limits to the clumsy kid from Iowa who couldn't handle to carving knife.

Meanwhile, about 150 miles to the west, was my Grandfather's small home. We visited each place just about as often, my father and I. My mother never went to see my Grandfather after my Grandmother died. Not once. Until the funeral. And when my dad did go. There was alwas a strange ritual. "I'll go inside and help him get breakfast started." He'd say. "Stay here in the car." And I would. Sometimes as much as hour would go buy. And then my dad would always come out, with my Grandfather. And they'd both be smiling from ear to ear. "So glad you're here! My Grandpa would say. Now lets start breakfast." And then the ritual would begin. Cast iron skillet. Crisco in the skillet. Pretty much pure manufactured fat. All of the fat, now with added chemicals, so ten times as unhealthy. Then he'd fry the bacon in the skillet. And then more Crisco. Then pancakes. And keep everything in the oven. And no questions. More Crisco, then crispy fried eggs over easy. Because that was the way you finished a dish. A 'dollop' of real butter on top of the stack of pancakes, then three or four pieces of bacon, then two or three eggs on top of it all. A fat kid's last meal.

And then it was a day of Chinese Checkers and Checkers every Canasta, and Maid Rites up town. Wax candies from the Ben Franklin And then a couple of months would go by and I could never figure out why.

By the time he died, I was nearly 14. Sometime in those last few years, I'd put it together. There was always two or three sacks of groceries in the back seat. One for breakfast. Two to leave behind. And a roll of trash bags. For the two or three dozen Southern Comfort Bottles that would be strewn about the house. What my dad was doing in the time in between, was making sure that his son knew his grandfather at his best. So he'd go in and get him up. Sometimes he'd have to clean him up. And clean him up. Or help him shave. It wasn't new He'd been doing it his whole life. And I'm guessing when he walked out the door he told himself never again. Strange what you do for those you love, isn't it?

But maybe that's the reason you hit the bottom at well over 200 mph and I continue to surf along it in my wing suit. Because the shit show at your grandpa's house took his emotional traumas and displayed them on the shelf. At my grandpa's house, it was, quite unfortunately, an ever exploding shit show in the most real of ways.

But its still something that we share. Old Lewis man. "True Friendship begins when one man turns to another and says, You too? I thought I was the only one."

and thus, we are two.