DON 'T DO THAT! During those years when the concept called for total abolition of all alcoholic beverages nationally I worked as a newspaper reporter. I found largely largely by talking to taxi cab drivers, that there were, at least, twenty-seven locations in our small city a which such forbidden beverages were available.
My unofficial “poll” used information from the area's taxi cab drivers. Ours was a city which sneaked into that level of municipal entitlement when it took just five-thousand citizens to be termed a city rather than a town.
We used a wide variety of name for such places. Big cities used the name “speakeasy” with the manner of gaining admission to an night club setting. We had few such locations location in our relatively rural area. The terms ”club” or “roadhouse” suggested such degradation in progress. Most such locations came to be known – or, officially “unknown” among potential clients by the name of the owner-operator or a nick-name.
A feminine side was evident at times. In one case I recall the ladies sold chickens - de-feathered, singed, cleaned and cut up ready for frying. The men of the family, helping their wives market chickens, packaged them in neat wooden boxes, provided the buyers. Such birds, in transition, found comfort all the way wrapped in papers and all, and resting all the way on a layer of liquid-filled glass containers. We used to joke about the need to keep several of the men on the road so much buying live chickens.
Every time I see a new boycott, curfew or blockade affair being started I remember ways I have seen as used by more-or-less normal citizens as they bend, twist, modify and re-interpret the word of the Law.
A.L.M. February 27, 2006 [c310wds]
