My father, Rick, has a couple of drinking stories. He was born in 1917 and grew up in Columbia, Missouri. His mother was from Chicago and my father spent vacations there with an older cousin named Bill.
Both these tales took place when my father was twelve or thirteen years old, his cousin Bill 19, during Prohibition. Bill took my father to a popular drinking establishment in Chicago called Ivanhoe’s. My father said it had an extremely clever set-up: the bartender could push a button and the bar would crash down a floor breaking all the bottles, leaving no proper evidence for the police.
My dad’s cousin Bill’s family had a summer cottage on the far tip of a peninsula in Lake Michigan, a place called Ellison Bay. Rick and Bill were alone there in late September. One morning very early the two boys heard a boat being rowed to shore right in front of their cottage. Rick and Bill scrambled into their clothes and went outside to see who was there. There were four hulking big guys hoisting huge burlap bags toward the cottage. They asked if they could leave the bags beneath the porch till they could get back at nightfall. Both boys nodded in assent and one of the men pulled a bottle of liquor from his stash in the burlap bag. They sat in a circle and took turns sampling the hooch and then the men disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. This was my father’s first drink of liquor. He likes to show me the exact place on the map where this action took place.
Both these tales took place when my father was twelve or thirteen years old, his cousin Bill 19, during Prohibition. Bill took my father to a popular drinking establishment in Chicago called Ivanhoe’s. My father said it had an extremely clever set-up: the bartender could push a button and the bar would crash down a floor breaking all the bottles, leaving no proper evidence for the police.
My dad’s cousin Bill’s family had a summer cottage on the far tip of a peninsula in Lake Michigan, a place called Ellison Bay. Rick and Bill were alone there in late September. One morning very early the two boys heard a boat being rowed to shore right in front of their cottage. Rick and Bill scrambled into their clothes and went outside to see who was there. There were four hulking big guys hoisting huge burlap bags toward the cottage. They asked if they could leave the bags beneath the porch till they could get back at nightfall. Both boys nodded in assent and one of the men pulled a bottle of liquor from his stash in the burlap bag. They sat in a circle and took turns sampling the hooch and then the men disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. This was my father’s first drink of liquor. He likes to show me the exact place on the map where this action took place.
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