TheBanyanTree: Beer and Drive-in Movies: On Being Nineteen

[Theta Brentnall]

Mike told us about his beer memories.  I have some beer memories, myself.

If the question is "what kind of beer do you like?" the answer is "I 
don't."   I will drink British ale, maybe because it's substantial, almost 
chewy, but I never have liked beer.  At one time, however, back when I was 
a shiny brass 2Lt in the Air Force, I could do a blind taste test and pick 
Lone Star out of the crowd.  I was stationed at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, 
Texas, and I was taking some classes with an eye toward getting my MBA 
(never did, but that's beside the point.)  One of them was a 
macro-economics class taught by a part-time professor.  His day job was as 
the chief financial officer for Lone Star Brewery.  The class was 4 hours 
every Saturday, and for his convenience, it was held off campus in the 
conference room at the brewery headquarters.  I say the words 
"macro-economics" and smell hops even now.  The dozen or so of us taking 
the class would come in, get settled at the big conference table, and our 
professor's serving wenches would come trooping in with pitchers of 
beer.  Nothing else to drink - just beer.  Hey, if the rest of the class, 
including the prof, was going to get a buzz on, why should I be the only 
sober one in the group?

Come to think of it, maybe the fact that I didn't get my MBA isn't beside 
the point.  I mean, after a class like that all the others were just WORK.

The guys I hung out with thought it was a hoot that I could tell Lone Star 
from all other brews, and they won a few bucks at Friday night happy hours 
at the Officers' Club betting on my well developed sense of taste.  It was 
always a marvel to everyone that the only beer I could pick out of the pack 
was Lone Star.  Who in their right mind would specialize in Lone Star?  I 
just always kept a straight face and told them it was long story.

Liz is taking macro-economics now, but she's getting a lot more out of it 
than I did.

Theta