CRUSHING

Smaxie, one of my teeny-bopper pals from a "few" years back, sent me a hilarious email yesterday called “25 Ways to Tell You’re Grown Up.” Here’s a sample: “6 A.M. is when you get up, not when you go to bed.” “You watch the Weather Channel.” “You’re the one calling the police because those blasted kids won’t turn down their music.” The one that hit a homerun with me, however, was Number 20: “A $4.00 bottle of wine is no longer ‘pretty good shit’.”

That last one reminded me of the time in the fall of 2006 when Big Bore and I were celebrating my retirement in Estes Park, Colorado. We had rented a little cabin, and the best thing about it was: HOT TUB!!! And aside from lounging in the bubbly heat, the next best thing about being in a hot tub is: BOTTLE OF WINE!!! Right? We headed to the nearest liquor store.

“I wonder if Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill is still on the market,” I said, as we made our way through the aisles of bottles. A helpful clerk directed us to the right spot.

“Wow!! Remember how good it was?” I said to Big Bore and myself. “I used to drink it like a baby sucking a bottle!”

Big Bore agreed that Strawberry Hill was A-number one. It was his choice of wine, also, back in the 1970s. Of course, that may have been because it was 99 cents a bottle.

So, we picked up some Boone’s--I think it was now up to $3.49, and we rushed back to the cabin for some hot tub and Strawberry Hill. Now, I’m not supposed to drink alcohol. It doesn’t mix well with the meds I’m on, but I figured a little sip for old time’s sake wasn’t going to hurt.

So, we got in the tub, clinked our glasses with a toast, and drank to our youth, wherever it went.

And--the wine was horrid!!!

“Good lord! Why in the world did we think this was so great?” I asked BB, who was also making a face in disgust. What a disappointment. “Pretty good shit” doesn’t taste pretty good at all when you’re over 50!

We put the glasses down, never to pick them up again that night. And the only time the bottle has since been opened was to dump the wine down a sink.

There’s a well-known old saying: “You can’t go home again.” Whoever came up with that adage must have lived at Boone’s Farm.