I am not going to defend any of the stupid things I did when I was younger. Some of them, while possibly considered stupid by others (skydiving) were rather fun. Others there is no defense for; these are the ones I lie awake at night trying to figure out how to keep my kids from doing.
Under the category of "others" falls having a few beers and then getting into a car to tool around with some buddies. Maybe that should say, "drive around with buddies"; I've been advised that "tool around" means different things different places.
Anyway, drinking and driving is a bad idea. You don't need me to tell you that.
There was a comedian on the other day commenting on George Bush's arrest for drunk driving. The comic said something like, "This was back in the early 80's. Do you know how hard it was arrested to for driving under the influence in the early 80's"?
Bush's arrest came in '76 according to the link above. But I believe I started that last paragraph with "There was a comedian on the other day" and not "I was having coffee with Bush's autobiographer." We need to cut the comic some slack -- they're not all as good at being funny and historically correct as Eddie Izzard. (Yep, I said, Bush's Autobiographer. What. You think he's going to write it himself?)
In 1976 I was 16. I can't say I was really doing any drinking then. Well, about that time I had a bottle of wine one night. Several of us camped out and had some alcohol. The most memorable thing was one of the guys getting sick on warm Little Kings (that's a 7-ounce bottle in the picture) and having dry heaves most of the night. It was awesome.
When I look back on a particular period of time it seems like my friends and I were getting pulled over fairly often. We were never horribly smashed and we weren't getting pulled over for weaving. Until this minute I'd never given this much thought -- maybe the police would get wise when they'd see the same group of boys drive by time and time again and they'd pull us over just to see what was going on. We'd always have beer. Somebody might have to take a field-sobriety test. We'd often be told to be careful. We'd be sent on our way and told to go home. Given how the law has changed over the years it isn't hard to believe that, by today's standards, we would have been over the blood-alcohol-content line. By 1980's standards, maybe not.
The police may have been cutting us some slack as we lived in small-town Ohio. A person didn't have to go but a mile or two to be out in the county where there isn't too much to run into. Maybe it's because a lot of these officers grew up in the 50's when there was even less to do and they knew... well, just knew. Maybe it was because none of us were hardcore hoodlums.
I should point out that the Thugs I ran around drinking with were a pretty tame group by anybody’s standards.
What have we got here?
Alcohol and autos are a bad combination. I am not saying otherwise. My buddies and I are lucky we didn't get hurt or hurt someone else.
Having said that, there are some, in retrospect, interesting things that happened in which alcohol was involved.
(Other observations: I rarely drink anymore and have a been aging the same six-pack for about two months in the fridge. The guy that almost killed me may have been hammered; but that's another story.)
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