During the period of the 1920s, there was a resurgence of thought pioneered basically by Southerners. It resulted in the banning of the sale and use of beer. The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol and came to be known as the Prohibition Act. Prohibition was widely flouted. It resulted in people making their own home brew, just as it promoted the making of bootleg whiskey. This encouraged so-called rum runners who brought whiskey into this country in violation of the law. The law took effect in about 1920 and it lasted until 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt became our President.
At this late date, I will concede and admit that at the tender age of 10 or 12 years I also broke the prohibition law. And I was very happy to do it. Here are the circumstances that led to the breaking of the prohibition law. My mother had a sister named Nora. Nora ran a rooming house in downtown St. Louis, very near to the Mississippi River. Nora and her sister, my mother, were polar opposites in their outlook on life. Nora was a happy go-lucky person, whom I suspect had been married at least once or twice and who had probably conducted some affairs. But no matter how you cut it, I liked Nora as an aunt.
Perhaps three or four times a year, we were invited to have “dinner” at Nora’s home. You will recall that in my parents’ lexicon, there was breakfast, there was dinner at around noon time, and the final meal of the day was called supper. On the occasions that we were invited to have our dinner at Nora’s home in the rooming house, I prepared myself for the worst gustatory experience of my life. The reason for the apprehension about dining with Nora had to do with her delight in serving ducks and geese. She often kept the prospective meal in her back yard and I grew very fond of them and regarded them as pets. She would only keep one or two ducks or geese in her back yard. They seemed to be affectionate pets. I could not get over the thought that we were dining on a goose that I had petted very recently. On top of this, I do not like any fowl at all. My mother raised chickens. I deplored the thought that some of them would be slaughtered when Nora came to our house. The fact of the matter is that I have never enjoyed the eating of fowls. Birds and geese, robins and ducks are to be enjoyed with the eyes; they are not to be, in my estimation, the subject of eating.
Nonetheless, after church services we dined with my Aunt Nora on perhaps three or four occasions per year. As I told you a little earlier, Nora was a free-wheeling sort. In her basement¸ she always kept the fermentation of her next batch of beer. From time to time, I was encouraged to have a sip of Aunt Nora’s beer. I was revolted by it.
On the other hand, because Nora and her husband regarded us as guests, I was sent to the corner of Chouteau Avenue where a man who ran a small eatery also had a beer supply. I have never been a drinker of beer. At the age of 7 or 8 or 10 years, I considered the corner speakeasy brew considerably better than Nora’s home brew.
When I left Aunt Nora’s place, I was given a container called a pail. I am guessing that it held perhaps one gallon. I would take the pail to the rear door of the speakeasy, where an attendant would fill the pail with his own version of home brew. Now for lexicographers, the word pail seems to have disappeared from the language we now speak. In my rum running phase of life, the pail was the instrument which carried the home brew from the small eatery on Chouteau Avenue back to Nora’s house on about Seventh Street in St. Louis. The truth is that I greatly enjoyed the trips to the small restaurant where beer could be bought during the era of Prohibition.
When dinner was served at Aunt Nora’s house, I would concoct all sorts of excuses for my lack of appetite. Actually I filled myself as best I could with the heels of bread covered with margarine. It was not much of a meal but it sure beat eating the ducks and geese.
So you see that I have a record of violation of the law going back perhaps 80 years. I cannot tell you that I regret breaking the Prohibition law because in truth I enjoyed breaking the law.
There are a couple of other aspects having to do with Aunt Nora. I suspect that Aunt Nora had no religious convictions at all. In later days, she would be called an agnostic or perhaps even a non-believer or an atheist. But Nora was Nora. You could take it or leave it as you saw fit. Nora, by the way, was the person who usually addressed me as “boy,” followed by, “What would you be if you were not Irish?” The answer to that question was, “I would be ashamed.”
But the incident that I wish to relate to you now had to do with a church service. Near her home in St. Louis, close to what used to be called the Free Bridge across the Mississippi, there was an evangelistic church. To put it bluntly, the church services were of the “holy roller” type. On one occasion, Nora took my mother and me, of all things, to this church service held in the afternoon on a Sunday. When the preacher began his incantations, there were women who stood up and yelled about their satisfaction with Jesus. As the service continued, the incantations from the audience grew more intense. Further along, one of the celebrants would stand up, raise her hands and then fall to the floor. Supposedly this is where the name of the holy rollers came from. They would writhe on the floor. The preacher would walk among the writhers. On one occasion, someone from the audience tried to help the roller on the ground to her feet. The preacher said, in loud tones, “Leave her where Jesus flang her.”
I suspect that my Aunt Nora was viewing this as pure entertainment. My mother was revolted to a degree, despite the fact that she was a very religious person. But in any case, for the next 80 years or so the thought of “Leave her where Jesus flang her” has always been my thought about religious services.
In 1933, the Prohibition Act became a thing of the past. When I took my pail of beer back to Nora’s home, I was no longer considered a law breaker. Ever since 1933, I present myself to the world as a law abiding citizen who hates the consumption of ducks and geese, but who loves the thought of “Leave her where Jesus flang her.”
E. E. CARR
December 14, 2012
Essay 723
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Kevin’s commentary: For starters, flang is not a real word but it’s a great one.
Secondly I’m throwing the “favorite” tag on this essay primarily because of the amazingness that is Pop/Nora exchange. Unfortunately said exchange holds that I should be half-ashamed because I suspect I’m only about half-Irish, having been diluted by my father’s side of the family. God knows where they came from, but I would think that they’re just standard Euro-mutts like the rest of the whiteys in this country.
Even being half (or more) Irish though, I feel like it’s not enough to “count,” so to speak. If I see an obviously Irish dude on the street I’m not going to tell him “aye, mate!” or whatever the Irish (pirates?) say to one another. I won’t feel any cultural bond. Which is fine, I guess — I have never really missed my “cultural heritage” but I do drink plenty of Guiness, like the Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem, and enjoyed a free (to me) secondary education. Close enough?