Beer for Beer

Yesterday would have been my father’s 93rd birthday.  He has been gone for 27 years.

I thought about him while sitting in the sunroom.   

I cannot imagine what he would be doing had he made it to this birthday.  He was, by the time of his passing, headlong into another of his many bouts with alcohol.

Given his track record, my father would likely be involved in his 7^th or 8^th marriage by now.

And I thought about the time, in the early 1980s, when I hauled my friend Kevin to Plains, Montana, to visit my father along with me.  Back then, my father was beginning his day with a glass of brandy and sustaining for the rest of the day with beer.

Our visit included a trip to my father’s cabin.  That’s when Kevin made a day-long mistake.  He and my father popped open beers as soon as we left Plains for the mountains in the morning.  “I’m going to match your dad beer for beer today,” he told me.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kev.  Dad is a pro.”

Kevin offered one of his best crooked smiles and shrugged.  He was all in.

Kevin gave his best.  But by mid-afternoon, he was, as we say in East Helena, Montana, “hammered” and barely upright.  He pinballed against everything upright as he walked and he tracked our conversations poorly.

I thought about that because I have spent my entire life trying not to match my father beer for beer.

—Mitchell Hegman