This morning at 7:00, I heard pounding outside the window (the windows have been open for some time in North Carolina). I looked outside and found Grandma X., across the road, in her robe with a hammer and a sign. She's driving a stake into the heart of the devil, and it reads "Vote NO Alcohol May 6."
We go to the polls here in North Carolina on Tuesday. But as you can see there are bigger fish to fry than a silly little presidential primary. This happens to be a dry county. And whether we, as a community, jump off the wagon is up for vote.
Now I'm a big fan of temperance, certainly its spiritual necessity, but to show all my cards I'm also a fan of seconds. (No cult of the body practiced here.) I'm quite at odds, however, with the temperance movement and fail to understand sympathies for it today. I suppose many people have seen their share of pulpit beatings on the subject. I suspect many people know someone who succumbed to ye olde fyre water.
For me, however, there were two sins committed in those strange times when teetotalers gained the power of prohibition: Wasting so much good alcohol and injuring the word temperance for over a century. And the sin against our language is the worse because it still shades meaning today. At least the short epochs of Prohibition in our country produced some fine domestic brews.
If we vote No on Tuesday, I will be okay. No home brewing for me, of course, but that doesn't change anything. So pound the stake in deep, Grandma X. If you wouldn't mind, though, could you wait till 8:00 a.m. next time?
2 comments:
Grandma X. is one of three older ladies that live across the street from us. The kids call all of them grandma.
It's better for Grandma to be out early in the morning than late at night. Grandmas out late at night have been known to get runover by reindeer. Will be waiting to hear how the vote turns out!
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