When I was the commander of the 508th Maintenance Detachment at Fort Lewis, Washington, my parents and my brother Craig and his wife came out to visit me during the last week of August 1986. The fact was that my parents never had any intention of visiting me. They had taken one look at me and they had passed judgment. Because I had tanned really dark brown during a recent deployment to Central America. Apparently I was too dark to be related to them. But I had won the day or at least the battle. What battle? The battle that had been waging between my family. On the one hand, and my aunt Pearl, on the other hand, for the favor of all of my parents’ time while they were on vacation. My aunt had finally given my old man the boot for good. When she threw him out for the last time just before we went to the world’s fair in Vancouver, she told him that he needn’t bother to come back to her house. If you recall my discussion about the measure of “cheap,” you will remember that I said that there is an absolute limit to the amount of “cheap” that any one person will accept before said person draws a line in the sand and says enough is enough. Now, I want to be the first to go on record as saying that my aunt Pearl was no saint when it came to the “cheap” factor or any other virtue for that matter. Well, I may not actually have been the first person to have gone on record as stating that she was a cheapskate. There may have been others that may have preceded me. I think that whole damn family was. Cheap, I mean. And I think everybody knew that my old man’s family was a bunch of cheap bastards. People have said that I am a cheap bastard as well. All that I can say is this: the apple doesn’t fall very damn far from the tree. And I was forced to live with that bastard starting at a very young age by adoption via 2nd marriage. So of course, some of his worst and maybe some of his best traits wore off on me. Although I’m not sure which of his best traits ever wore off on me. Cuz I sure as hell never heard him get accused of being a really great guy. Come to think of it, I never heard me described as a really great guy either. I’m just saying. I’ve been accused of a lot of shit, most of it not true. But I can honestly say that I was not accused of being a really great guy. Go figure. The long and short of all of this is that my parents spent the last few days of their vacation at my house. They didn’t seem really happy about it. But I wasn’t really busted up about the fact that they didn’t seem really happy. I really didn’t give two shits about their happiness. My brother Craig and I still had one event to knock off of our to-do list. We needed to go to Seattle to tour the Rainier Brewing Company. Just like we had done when we visited the Olympia brewery, we took along an extra shirt and a hat. However, this time we had to take along one additional wardrobe item. We each had to take along an extra jacket because it was raining. It hadn’t been raining when we went to the Olympia brewery in Tumwater, so we didn’t need an extra jacket. However, we needed the extra jacket for this trip because it was raining, and it was considerably colder outside. Another change that I made for the trip to the Rainier Brewing Company was that I didn’t drive my Fiat Spider 2000. The trip to the Rainier Brewing Company was quite a ways farther from my home than the Olympia brewery was. I didn’t want to risk the chance of drawing the attention of donut chasers with a donut magnet. And the Fiat Spider 2000 was a proven donut magnet. Instead, we took my red Chevy van. Plus, the red Chevy van would make it easier for us to change between tours. The trip up to Seattle was not eventful but the traffic was kind of heavy. When we got to the Rainier Brewing Company, we had to wait almost a half hour before we could start a tour. That right there seemed like a portend of things to come. I hoped not. While we were waiting for our tour to start, we sat in the van and twiddled our thumbs while we listened to music. Finally, it was time for our tour to start. We stood in line to get in the door of the brewery. Once inside, we had to wait while the tour guide had everybody who brought umbrellas check those umbrellas at the front desk. Another bad sign. Those goddamn bad signs were starting to stack up. I guess they didn’t want to have anybody armed with clubs while we were on the tour. And I further surmised that they considered the umbrellas to be makeshift clubs. I seriously thought that the tour guide watched too many late-night TV murder mystery movies. Cuz nobody in their right mind would try to bludgeon somebody with an umbrella. Seriously? The minute somebody tried that shit, some kung fu master would be his unsuspecting victim who just happened to snatch the umbrella out of his hands and then open up a can of whoop ass on him. That’s the way that shit would go down. I mean, come on, look around. We were in Seattle. This was the original US home of Bruce Lee. There were take-my-dough (Taekwondo) shops on every street corner. Then, the tour was underway. After the tour, we got to taste free samples of the beer. They even allowed each customer to buy one sixpack of a selected beverage at cost. My brother and I rushed out to our car so that we could change our shirts and jackets. We also put on our hats that we brought with us. Then, we waited for the next tour to start. When the next tour started, we stood in line again to get in the door of the brewery. Just like the first time, we had to wait while the tour guide had everybody who brought umbrellas check those umbrellas at the front desk. Then the tour started. After the tour, we stood in line to get free samples. However, when we got up to the counter to ask for a sample, the guy serving the samples asked, “Hey, weren’t you two in here before?” I looked at him kind of funny and replied, “What do you mean before?” “You know. On the tour just before this.” “I don’t think so. We just got here.” “Are you sure?” “I’m absolutely positive. Traffic was a bitch getting here.” “No. I’m sure of it. Earlier, you were wearing a green shirt and a brown jacket with no hat. And the blonde guy was wearing a red shirt and a blue jacket with no hat. But you’re the same two guys. You are just wearing different shirts and different jackets. And now you have hats on. What did you do? Did you go out to your car between tours and change? A lot of people try that shit with me. But I got a really good memory.” “Damn man. You got a photographic memory. Mine works kinda like that too. I ain’t ever been caught before. You’re damn good. We’re busted.” “Where did you come from?” “Well, I’m from down in Tacoma, but my brother here is from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I thought we’d be able to sample a couple extra brewskis before we hit the road back to my house.” “Well, you’ve been a pretty good sport, so I’ll let you have one. But that’s it. Cuz you’re busted.” “Yeah, yeah. I got the busted part. Can we each still buy a six pack to go?” “Sure. No problem.” So, we had our one free sample, and we each bought our sixpacks to go and then we left. Our busted tour of the Rainier Brewing Company had proved to be a humbling exercise in futility for us.
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