All during our “kid years” and beyond, all of the “grownups” in our family and their friends drank rather “extensively.”  However, to be fair and accurate I must point out that they only drank on 2 specific occasions: when they were alone and when they were with anyone else! Whenever we view the old “slides” of the early years, we all are appalled as we notice all the liquor bottles in the back and foregrounds of all the slides! We always say, “Wow! They sure did drink A LOT in those days! My ongoing theory is that WE caused most of their heavy drinking! Hey, if you’ve read all the previous stories about Tim and I, wouldn’t you drink heavily too!!! One of my mother’s “angry commentaries” to me when I was acting “impossible” as a kid was, “You’re enough to drive a preacher to drink”! Aha! This gives more credibility to my theory! I’ve often thought over the years that it’s a good thing I never meant Billy Graham when I was a kid, or he may have become a hopeless drunk; the same goes for Mother Theresa too! I imagine when I finally “grew up” and/or “matured” (STILL debatable by many yet today), that the Dow Jones stock in major liquor companies no doubt took a major mysterious nosedive! The title of this account is a particular incident that took place when, I’m guessing, I was around 5 or 6. One Sunday afternoon during a family friend get-together on a nice early autumn day, I was as usual nosing around all the open liquor bottles. Also as usual, my dad yelled, “Get away from the liquor”! I then started my usual repartee of pleading to let me just have one taste. (I figured if I was the possible cause of “driving preachers to drink,” that I at least was entitled to see what the stuff tasted like.) The usual response was, “This stuff is only for adults, and when you’re 21 then you can taste it”! At 5 years old or so “21” is at least 100 years in “kid time conception.” This time, however, I think our dad wanted to “get this out of my system” once and for all. He shocked me and said, “Ok, if you want to taste it, here, go ahead.”  He then handed the bottle of Gin to me and told me to take a big swallow of it! WOW! You talk about feeling “Big”! Right in front of everyone, who heard the whole confrontation, I boldly took the bottle of Gin, took a big swig, and gulped it right down! I distinctly remember the next few moments! That was the most horrible, vial, bitter, burning stuff I had EVER tasted! I tried to spit out what little remained in my mouth as I was running at full speed to the kitchen to get a BIG drink of water. On the way to the kitchen, I remember I yelled, “WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, POISON ME”!!!!! That was surely one time that the words of my grandmother rang true in my mind, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just may get it” This is one time that I sure “GOT IT”!