Author’s note: After a blue-skied St Patrick’s day with friends, food, good cheer and our town’s first parade since 2019, these thoughts surfaced:

When I used to go to the refrigerated section in liquor stores to pick up some beer back in college, I’d stand by the cooler’s glass doors and search past the Cokes, Cold Duck and Squirt, sometimes as my eyes glided over the rows, they suddenly became rooted on the off-white canned stuff called Malt Liquor. You know, the ones with the bucking bronco, the upturned horseshoe and the name of the revolver that won the West. Two to three times the blast at less than a 20% increase in price. And then those cans would boldly whisper to me the rapture of secret desires consummated in passion that once stumbled upon together in the days when we never thought that such a thing as “irreconcilable differences” would have to do with us. Yeah, if consumed regularly, you’d gain some weight, but fattening it was not. Mind altering it certainly was.

Now I drink bourbon since my weight must be controlled per multiple doctors’ orders. Also included in this healthy regimen is champagne and red wine.

In my life, sinful things were and remain always the ones I had to give up, not the ones that didn’t make any difference. Colt 45 was my original sin. It was one of one of those things that distinguished certain handfuls of my past in the rare arrangements that circumstance occasionally allowed so that life was made to seem worth living. At least for people like me. Back then, champagne didn’t make any difference. Half a can of the Colt equaled half a bottle of cheap wine at way less cost — that’s why kicking the Colt outta my life was hard. I never gave up my sins until the last moment, hoping that modern medical science would figure it out. But true sins are never eliminated by science or art, so since all either of them could come up with was bourbon, bubbly and still wines, they tide me over. Sometimes, just in the first ten minutes of some crap bourbon on the rocks in some late-night dive bar, I get almost a trembly hint of the Colt.

Along these lines — anything that became a heart’s desire, I noticed, sooner or later turned into a sin and we’d only wind up with hints, so we’d be lucky to get even half our allotted time to enjoy it. So, desire something enormous, the road of life being what it is. Like long distance back road motorcycling.

That’s my advice.

Go forth and sin no more . . . well, at least a little until the docs say you gotta be saved. Make sure they show you the supporting lab results and scans.

-Marlow

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