There’s actually beer in that milkshake we’re holding at this father-daughter dance.
A helpful PSA from Just Add Beer: this Sunday is Father’s Day! It’s one of my favorite made-up holidays because 1) I’m very fond of my father, and 2) the holiday-creating entities of our capitalist oligarchy have decided beer should be a big part of Father’s Day. The beverage is featured in store displays of cards, ties, and books alongside the same items geared toward cars, sports, or meat. Because that’s what American dudes do. Never mind that NONE of the men in my life define themselves using any of these stereotypes. Except beer.
He may not know it, but my father, Boyd, gave me my first real drink of alcohol, a glass of wine when I was visiting from college for a holiday. I went to Ohio University, and by all rights I should have been a heavy drinker by then, but I wasn’t. That night SNL had never been funnier and I helped myself to another slosh before bed.
This was a Bad Hair Year for us both
It’s only fitting then, that I helped him enter the world of craft beer. When I was growing up, Dad was a Busch man. I tried a can in college (having quickly embraced the drinking culture the next quarter) and wondered at my father’s fortitude. How had this man drank several of these a night for years and still maintained decent gastrointestinal health? Good God! When I was very young he referred to it as his “skunk juice,” which I took literally at first and later adopted as our code for beer in public, much to my mother’s chagrin.