yourgrandpadidn’tdrink

Your Grandpa Didn’t Drink

Liberals today who shudder to see the influence that Fundamental Christians are having on the life and mores of the 21^st century may not realize that such swings have happened before in this country. They may not realize how far the descendants of those hard-drinking and whiskey producing Scots of western Pennsylvania who fomented the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 had risen from decadence. And some of you may not be aware of my personal odyssey in connecting with my Scot ancestors.

I was born six years after the Prohibition experiment ended. In Iowa, it had been fairly effective. In the river towns, there was some bootlegging but in central Iowa, the combination of minimal demand because of protestant religious pressure, small population centers, and distance from Canada and Chicago overcame the desire of the Roman Catholics, Germans, and Lutherans to continue their historic beverage diet. I grew up in this environment and even participated in W.C.T.U. (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) public speaking contests. When my high school buddies experimented with beer, I stayed home. So pristine was my environment that the football coaches at Dartmouth who were recruiting me chose to not invite me for a campus visit for fear that the different environment at Dartmouth would dissuade me from attending.

At Dartmouth, the environment was indeed different! The College was located across the border from Canada and the majority of the students were from eastern cities. During prohibition, regular deliveries were made to specific drop points on campus. When prohibition ended, state laws that set the drinking age at 21 were not particularly menacing to a population that have been violating federal laws for more than a decade. And this mentality continued during all my Dartmouth years. During freshmen orientation, the Sophomore Orientation Committee members routinely provided beer at the freshmen get-togethers. Pre-dinner cocktails at the home of the dean of the college routinely included sherry for the underclassmen attending. One of the most useful Freshman Orientation lectures was on alcohol consumption and the rate at which alcohol could be dissipated in the human body; for a budding engineer-scientist such data were a godsend.

In high school, it was always easy to put down the drinkers and smokers as lesser quality. One of my first observations was that these college drinkers were quality folk. Significantly, they weren’t being struck down by God for their errant behavior. What a challenge to my belief structure! But I’d heard how my cousins Bob and John had withstood temptation when they were in the military at the end of WWII. And I was out for sports so nobody questioned my abstinence.

As time went on, I did sample various concoctions, bought a keg for the fraternity on my 21^st birthday , and became more familiar with alternatives and their effects. This world continued to be totally isolated from my family in Iowa, however, until my graduation four years later. No one from home had visited the campus during my tenure except my brother Alan who entered his freshman year at Dartmouth as I began my senior year.

I had expected my father and mother and Aunt Mabel for graduation; I was very surprised to greet my 84 year old grandmother when the family arrived. Grandmother’s arrival posed some unanticipated challenges. Of all the family, she had led the most sheltered life; I feared that steering her through the Dartmouth activities of graduation week might be difficult. My brother Alan got the duty as guide and subsequent events proved that the apprehension had been justified.

The commissioning of ROTC officers that took place on Saturday morning was followed by a party at Casque and Gauntlet that included milk punch. My mother left on an errand downtown while I changed out of my uniform. Alan appeared at my elbow with a mischievous look on his face. “Aunt Mabel and daddy are wondering whether someone will serve them or whether they should get up and help themselves to the punch,” he said. I suggested that his self-interest in returning for his sophomore year might lie in successfully interposing himself between the punch and our parents. He obviously was successful although when we shared the story with our mother, she remarked that it might have been useful to let them try it!

Following the party at C & G, we went to a reception at the SAE Fraternity. Like all parties at the fraternities at that time, there was a keg on tap in the downstairs bar and mixed drinks were being served in the living room upstairs. Our hand signals successfully averted any direct drink offers or glasses being offered to our elder family members. Following the SAE party, however, Alan, who was escorting our grandmother across campus, learned that it had not been entirely overlooked. “Alan,” our grandmother said, “Were those boys at the fraternity drinking?” Alan, even then a diplomat, replied that he hadn’t noticed. Grandmother continued, “Well, I think that they were. I think that they were holding glasses behind them so I wouldn’t see them. (In fact, most glasses were help prominently in front.) The trouble with drinking is that people don’t know when to stop. Now your Grandfather didn’t drink.” Alan’s takeaway from this conversation was that his Grandfather wouldn’t have known when to stop!