A Cure for What Ales the Bluenoses

A while back, I shared some observations about busybodies who are out to rid the world of perfume and after-shave. This sparked an unexpected accusation from a reader. Not only are fragrance allergies serious business, she said, but hadn’t I also written a story three years ago for the Food section about a beer festival in Portland, Ore.?

“I think you should look at yourself in the mirror,” her message said. “People like you can be trying to hide something. Do you think you have a drinking problem?”

Well, I seldom disregard the wisdom of readers, particularly one with such a memory.

So I splashed on some Bay Rum and went down to Joe-Joist’s tavern. Over a schooner of ale and a brace of pickled eggs, I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar and pondered her question.

People like me, hmmm.

Let me say, yes, I drink. I consider myself a connoisseur of microbrew beer. I know a bit about single-malt Scotches. I like my red wines big. Sometimes, when I’m in a nautical mood, I’ll sip a good aged rum. But never bourbon. I wish I understood more about the splendid reserve tequilas available today, but, alas, there are only so many hours in the cocktail hour.

So do I have a drinking problem?

From what I can tell, anybody who drinks has a problem. And is a problem. At least that’s the thrust of our civic discussions these days.

Drunk drivers continue to take their grim toll of the innocent. A binge drinker dies in college and the state launches an expensive program across its many campuses to remind young people that they can say no. The president’s daughter is an underage drinker, and commentators rush to look for signs of turpitude in the family. We overlay our ethnic consciousness and conclude that some entire groups are victimized by booze peddlers. Cirrhosis, alcoholism, battered wives, mistreated children--lives torn asunder by the evil of liquor.

You cannot deny the facts, can you?

Indeed not. So here is another fact: Per capita U.S. consumption of beer, wine and spirits has been increasing for six years and now totals 36.9 gallons a year per adult, according to “Impact 2001,” a publication of M. Shanken Communications, which charts alcoholic beverage sales. Adjust that number to account for teetotalers and chardonnay sippers and that means the rest of us put away about a gallon a week.

If drinking was the problem as often described, you have to wonder how we maintain our position as the most efficient society of workers in the world. Not to mention how we possibly raise our kids, get our clothes to the laundry, rake the leaves or accomplish anything between binges and hangovers.

In reality, social drinking remains a popular pastime, an ancient and restorative ritual, a pleasant part of family life and a lubricant among friends. What it lacks, primarily, is people to say much on its behalf. So cheers and down the hatch.

My view is this: The bluenoses have made us all reformists when it comes to the problems of drinking, particularly the menace of drinking and driving. Good work. But along the way, as is their habit, they have become bullies. More than the dangers of drinking, they’re out to deny the fun of it.

“A growing number of people have become determined to make us all think that life is worse--less pleasurable, more dangerous--than it really is,” wrote my friend and colleague David Shaw in his book, “The Pleasure Police.”

I like the smell of bars, their conviviality, their sense of shelter. Saloons, at least those I patronize, are places to be with friends, to flirt with my wife, to meet strangers, to watch the World Series or to hide out, depending my mood. It is no accident that a synonym for liquor is spirits.

At the Huntington Library in Pasadena recently, I noticed a display of silver barware going back to the nation’s founding. “The drinking of alcohol with friends, family and business associates was regarded by many Americans as a favorite pastime,” said the interpretive sign. “In early America, city taverns and coffee houses were an essential part of community life.”

Look there, I thought. I know these people who made America. They were, to paraphrase my finger-wagging reader, people like me. Another schooner of ale, if you please.