You know what’s crazy? I’ll Tell you what’s crazy™
Birth to Beer.
I am about to date myself here, but I did something that has been 21 years in the making.
I brought my oldest son to a bar. A sports establishment known as Twin Peaks. The entire wait staff is female. It’s like a Victoria Secrets brochure with hops and Barley.
I watch my son as we walk in. He says nothing, but his eyes scream “Wow.”
If you are a man and not gay, this is Disney Land.
TV screens are everywhere, not one on the cooking channel or CNN. The hostesses are dressed seductively like they are about to fight in a pool of slippery mud.
Low cut shirts, vast amounts of cleavage, real and imagined are coming at us in HD stereo. The girls are wearing hiking shorts that are tighter than a snake’s second skin. It’s a restaurant with a flavor of undulating deliciousness.
We sit at the bar where a bevy of lovelies, all around his age, lean over the bar and smile with big eyes, colors that will take a long time to notice.
I see the child that was a boy in a new light.
“Ever try a Shiner Bock” I query.
He shakes his head. He is a college boy and his beer repertoire is as diverse as a tax accountants imagination.
“We’ll take two,” I say to the young lady who all ready knows my preference.
“Is that German?” he asks.
“Actually Texas,” I laugh. “Shiner, Texas. But it’s rich, you’ll enjoy it.”
She brings two tall mugs, icy cold.
I point to a large bill board at the end of the bar. “You see that?”
The digital read out says: 29.4 degrees.
“That’s the actual temperature of the keg cooler.”
I’ll pause while all the women reading this roll their eyes.
“That’s cold,” he says with a big smile. “Love cold beer.”
It’s a shtick. Who knows what the actual temperature is, but men love cold beer. Men love hot girls. Men love low cut shirts and sexy short shorts.
I’ll wait while you women reading roll your eyes again.
Too bad. We are cave creatures. It’s what we like. Food. Drink. We like bar maids who look like pin up girls in a motorcycle shop.
Don’t blame us ladies, blame God. It’s part of his master design.
The young woman brings us 2 “man size” beers.
I raise my glass and toast him.
He smiles. “Cheers.”
As we hold our glasses high, sports bombarding us from above and cleavage surrounding us on all sides, I see my baby in a new light.
There beside me is my first born, now a scruffy faced young man.
In that moment, I remember his birth, the first time I held him, the first time he pees on me from the changing table. I remember him waddling around the beach naked, I remember his first T ball game. I remember his first girl friend and his first car and sending him off to college.
Blink.
And in a moment life evaporates into the future.
I use to warm his milk. Now I make sure his beer is 29.4 degrees.
“This place is way better than Hooters,” he will say with all the realization of a baby lion who has only been to one watering hole on the Serengeti.
“You ain’t seen nothing son. You ain’t seen nothing.”
We both sip our icy, frothy man sized beers and begin a conversation that is new and different and invigorating. For the first time, I feel less like dad, and maybe like a buddy.
It’s a good night at Twin Peaks for all the usual reasons and for many more that are privately unique to me.
Cheers to man sized beers!
Cheers to my baby boy becoming a young lion.
Life’s Crazy™