Relax and Drink

Relax and Drink ©

By

Michael Casey

I need to relax, we all need to relax, we may have a pint of Stella and as it’s a couple of months since I did have a pint of Stella I’ll just make a mental point to have a pint or two of Stella, then I’ll go dry for 4 months . I’m not much of a drinker at all, 12 to 24 pints in a year. Please don’t laugh at me, I’m on the Pioneer side of drinking as opposed to the alcoholic side. It used to be the case in Ireland that ½ the population did not drink at all then the other half made up for it.

Our lodgers down the years were of the drinking side, Barney could barely stand as he stood by the back door, his rent money in hand, never missed. He enjoyed a drink or three, one Christmas he fell against his cooker and burnt all his back. My dad took him to hospital in Mr Morgan’s old Humber, Mr Morgan was drunk too, it was Christmas Eve after all. Mr Morgan was huge, on the scale of Humpty Dumpty, his belly brushed against the steering wheel, he was a taxi driver, lived a few doors up the road from our house. How they got there alive we’ll never know, I must have been 6 at the time. Dad was offered a lift back but he decided to walk. Decades later Barney lost a finger in an industrial accident, he got 5000 in compensation.  He pissed it up the wall but at least Piccaso would have been impressed by his artwork. Barney love a fag too, lots of them. All this explains how the average working man lived between the 60s and 90s, the bedsit land life. Barney lived till he was 83, my dad and my sister went to visit him and gave him a Birthday card, the next day he died. Such is life, his body went back home to Ireland, his bones could relax in the turf of home.

We all have ways of relaxing, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, or reading the Daily Telegraph. Whatever takes the pain/stress away then do it, but don’t frighten ladies and horses in the street, you could even vote Liberal, but maybe I’m stretching things a bit too far. We may paint, we may watch Glee or SUITS on tv, it takes us away from our daily lives , we are transported somewhere else. Sir Edward Heath used to sail, when its blowing up a gale you don’t think about petty ignorant disputes in Parlaiment, you are too busy trying to stay alive. Staying Alive makes me think of disco, do they have a disco in Parliament? Where all sorts can get up to all sorts, and end up in handcuffs, but that sounds too much like private lives.  So I’ll just finish with what Frankie said “ Relax, don’t do it…..”