I was reminded this morning that today would have been my great-grandmother's 132nd birthday. She is the only person of her generation in my family of whom I have active memories. Mostly I remember that she was incredibly sweet and indulgent to us great-grandchildren. Stories I've heard from before my time only confirm that picture of her. (My father loves to tell about having dinner with her when my brother was still a toddler, when he turned his nose up at most of his food. He'd eaten about four peas and not much else, when Granny said in an old-lady-Okie-voice, "He done pretty good. Let him have chocolate cake.") As I have admitted two weeks ago, on what would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday, I like to mark those days by doing something that makes me think of my ancestors. I expected that I would make a (flourless) chocolate cake, and maybe crochet or play Chinese checkers or drive around the cemetery "just for fun." I did none of those things. In fact, I am not sure Granny would have appreciated anything about this day. As my mother often says when she ends up working in the yard or laboring in some other way, "My grandmother would never have done this."
We found out this week that Oskar Blues brewery was having a special release event for a barrel-aged beer, and something called "Death by Coconut." I didn't fully understand the significance of this sort of knowledge. This morning, when I was leisurely making an omelette and fresh pot of coffee to warm up the man who had just shoveled snow off of my walk in the single-digit (F) temperatures, I said out loud that at some point we should stop by the tasting room to try the new beer. In my head, it would be on tap, and there would be a steady crowd of about fifteen or twenty beer drinkers in the bar at any given time. I was just sure that this would be around for a few days, no problem. The man laughed at me and said if we weren't there right at noon when they started, we were not going to get anything. Turns out even that was cutting it close. We drove up to the Tasty Weasel at 12:10, and the parking lot was slammed. We followed the arrows around to the warehouse entrance, and were greeted with wristbands and shunted over to the large crowd. They could only have about eighty people at a time in the bar, and our bands were numbers 380 and 381. It was a long wait. The warehouse was warm enough when there were 300 people in it, but once they got close to our numbers, it cooled off. We met a whole lot of fun people, many of whom brought in adorable dogs. At one point a man walked in with a hand truck stacked to the top with cases of their regular beer, and within seconds it was picked clean to the ground. It kept the crowds calm while we waited hours to go buy beers that cost $12.50 per can. Obviously, I did not drink beer, nor buy any for myself. But I did a good deed. By 3 pm, there were no wristbands left, but thanks to a careful rationing system, they still had beer left for those of us with bands. A man I walked back to the bar area with heard me say that I was gluten-intolerant, and thus not buying anything. He begged me to take him back to the purchase area, to use my number to buy a twelve pack. I helped a stranger pay $150.00 for half of a case of beer. Am I not helpful?
I begged the fates for this cold weather to come around. I got out and enjoyed the hell out of it once it did. I had to help with the rescue when the man tried to drive his project Jeep around the block and it died in the alley just up from our house. (And once it got running again, it almost didn't shut down. Turns out you can open up the cover over the air filter and choke it off at the carburetor in a pinch. Good to know, I guess.) We went to the movies (Rogue One for the first time--there will be more viewings), and it was dark and extra chilly by the time we got out. The car said it was -8. The weather app said -10. The air froze in my nostrils as I walked to the car. It was like being up in North Dakota again. And I spent the rest of the evening helping clean up the components as the man tore apart the old 4Runner he bought for our daughter back in North Dakota. He pulled out the dash to replace the heater core, and asked me to scrub all the pieces free of decades of dust and car residue. These are absolutely things my great-grandmother would never, ever do. I guess I'm setting my own traditions, that perhaps my own grandchildren can imitate to think of me instead.
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