“Hide the Booze! Here Come Liddy and Link!”

Copyright, 2012 by Jake Jakubuwski

 

Dogs, bats and dolphins hear sounds that are inaudible to the human ear. Those sounds are referred to as ultrasonic sounds. They can also hear those sounds at great distances.

 

Breaking the seal on a bottle of booze generates a normal, sonic sound, that most folks with normal hearing can hear only a few feet away.

 

Let me tell you about my mother’s cousin (I’ll call her Liddy) and her husband (Let’s call him Link). They had super sensitive hearing.

 

Liddy and Link could hear the seal on a bottle of booze being broken over great distances —  like across town or, even, in he next county!  And when they heard that sound, they came running.

 

I kid you not! I have seen actual, real-life proof that substantiates this!

 

On many Friday, or Saturday night when I was still at home, and when we knew for a fact that Liddy and Link were in the next county getting ‘commodities’ — they could hear the sound of a tax stamp tearing on a fresh bottle of Seagrams in our kitchen!

 

Commodities, by the way, were basic food stuffs that were distributed by the Department of Agriculture to low income families, the elderly and others needing assistance.

 

Anyway, it seemed that no matter how far away Liddy and Link were or what they were doing, the sound of tearing tax stamps was like a siren song to them.  When you broke the seal — they were at the front door.

 

Not only did they have exceptional hearing; they had also discovered teleportation long before Capitan Kirk ever commanded: “Beam me up, Scotty!”

 

To their credit, when they showed up at our front door, they always had a pint, a fifth or a six pack in a brown paper bag. They never came empty-handed. They never left that way either. They always took their booze home with them — unopened and unshared.

 

As I recall, Liddy and Link never overstayed their welcome. They came when the supply of beer, wine and whiskey was fresh and plentiful and they left just as the last dollops were poured into glasses or down gullets!

 

You see, when they came in, they always made sure we saw the sack with their particular libation of choice and then one, or the other, would tuck the sack safely under their chair and partake of our generosity and hospitality.

 

They always promised to add “this to the pot” when things got slow as they held up their sack before putting it under the chair they were sitting on.

 

You also have to keep in mind that this was well before the dependence on television made social zombies out of so many of us. It was a time when friends and family would gather ‘round a kitchen table to sing, play instruments, tell jokes, eat snacks — and drink.

 

If it was just family, we raided the refrigerator and someone did a “beer run”. If friends came over or family from out-of-town visited, they usually brought something to share with the rest of us.

 

Of course, Liddy and Link always brought something to share — they just never shared it!

 

By the time we got around to singing “Bill Hogan’s Goat” for the fourth or fifth time, no one cared who had what to drink and most of us were ready to go to bed, go home or see if there was any fresh air left to breath in the world beyond the kitchen door!

 

That’s when Liddy and Link would make their exodus and depart with their booze, beer or Mogan David intact and unsampled.

 

In spite of Liddy and Link’s reputation, we never turned them away. I guess because they were family and their actions gave everybody something to laugh about during the week. And, no one suffered any lack of something to drink because there always seemed to be plenty.

 

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve sat through a Saturday night like that. It’s also been a long time since I’ve had anything stronger to drink then Mountain Dew.

 

But every now and again, like tonight, when I’m sitting in my office, it seems I can still hear Aunt Mamie’s mandolin and someone saying: “Here come Liddy and Link! Hide the booze!” And everyone would roar with mirth.