| When Tim and I were kids back in the 1950's, our parents and their friends used to throw some real parties way BEFORE the word "party" became a verb! We knew that when we were sent to bed early on a Friday and/or Saturday night, that a big party was schedule for OUR house that night. We would lie awake long into the night and listen to all the commotion, laughing, and yelling all the "grown ups" were making. As the evening wore on, the noise got louder, overpowering the same "grown up" Lawrence Welk and "Swing" music we heard on the radio each morning. Tim and I never ceased to be amazed how much "grown ups" sounded like us kids on the school playground at recess. When it got really "late", the laughter, yelling, and occasional screaming followed by laughter got really LOUD! Even at our young age, we knew that there was a relationship between how loud the laughing and screaming got, by how many empty Jim Beam, Seagram's 7, and a variety of other bottles with other names on them were sitting or laying around the next morning. I remember that Elton G. always brought a bottle of "Zookey Juice" (as our father and his friend Art M. called all liquor) with a pretty colored picture of a "Thunderbird" on it. Even though we greatly resented having to go to bed early on many weekend nights, we did get our reward early the next morning. We would get up and run down stairs to, as we called it, "See the mess they made"! All the adults in our family were SOUNDLY sleeping and we could make all the noise we wanted and none of them would ever stir one bit! Our big reward was that we would drink all the 7up that was left in all the bottles! WOW! pop in the morning! Hey, it just didn't get any better than that for us! (Except, of course, Christmas morning)! We figured drinking a lot of pop in the morning was the LEAST they owed us for ruining so many of our weekend nights. We could never figure out why there ALWAYS seemed to be about and inch of 7up left in the bottles almost every time. We also knew that they used 7up as a "chaser" for the "Zookey Juice", but we never did account for the 1 inch or so that always was left in the bottle. We even entertained thoughts that maybe they did it purposely for us! (Nah, we didn't REALLY think so because most "grown ups" didn't "cow tow" to kids too often in those days). One time as Tim and I were eagerly guzzling down the left over 7up, I picked up a bottle and eagerly "wolfed down" the remaining contents, and after 1 or 2 swallows, I sprayed the mouthfull of lukewarm 7up all over the coffee table and carpet, and then immediately felt dizzy and "sick to my stomach"! In my eagerness to drink as much 7up as I could before Tim got to it, I failed to notice through the green-tinted 7up bottle that there was a cigarette butt in it! After that, I usually approached the left over bottles with more caution and held them up toward the windows to check for foreign objects, (especially cigarette butts!), before eagerly guzzling it down! YUUUUCCCHHHHHH! |
