Agog about grog …
“There’s many a toast I’d like to say,
If I could only think it;
So fill your glass to anything,
And, thank the Lord, I’ll drink it.”
Wallace Irwin’s take on grog is one side of the coin, James Boswell’s is another: “to conduct (drinking) in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living.”
Mt. Logan is big; apparently our thirst is too.
Then there’s Frank Tyger’s thought . . .
“Listening to both sides of a story will convince you that there is more to a story than both sides.”
Our side is wobbly pop by the ton. Three decades ago the Yukon Liquor Corporation’s first annual report in 1978 tells us 23,306 of us quaffed 6,723 tonnes. That’s 773,374 gallons.
Today, under the metric system, 10,000 more of us have our wobbly pop consumption to over 4 million litres a year or 963,270 gallons.
As phenomenal as these number are we’re a long way from the world title. In 2004 the prestigious Economist magazine gave that title to Luxembourg. Hungary got second and Ireland third.
Canada came in 18th on the list, one notch ahead of our southern neighbour who gave us the following “beer chaser” story illustrating the hazards of overindulgence these numbers suggest.
“A man chasing a half-full beer can across a Houston freeway was hit by a Chevy truck before he retrieved his prize. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was listed in critical condition.
The author of Darwin Awards III, Wendy Northcutt asks, “Was the beer half-full or the brain half-empty?”
So where do we put up the Handle with Care sign?
A Christmas Wish . . .
This year we have basked in the spirit and the beauty of our land.
We have touched hands, brushed minds, and joined hearts.
Soon we go to continue our quest,
To step in the trail of the wolf, to soar in the realm of the eagle
And walk softly in a wondrous land.
Each footprint testimony to people of our yesterdays
And those of our tomorrows
When the journey ends the measure will not be what we have done
But what we have loved.
May your trail speak well of you,
And be one your children will want to follow. (DB)
A tip of the Christmas hat to all our People Keepers. The many men and women who work 24/7 all year round keeping our needs and our wants fulfilled from food to fuel, from safety to security, taking us to and from wherever our whim takes us. Without them to rescue us from our failures and cheer in our triumphs, where would we be without them? I imagine the best thank you for them, especially for those in the ‘Safety Sector’ dealing with the chaos MADD reminds us of, would be a completely quiet shift – a silent night! Now that would be something to brag about?