A better beer

If you grow up in a small town in rural upstate New York and you are a girl, and you have a very strict father, you eventually will attend every imaginable sports event at your high school—even if you don’t particularly like sports. Every Friday or Saturday night, you’ll get dropped off at the school by your strict dad or slightly less strict mom, find a few similarly oppressed girls and go immediately elsewhere for the three hours of freedom you have procured. You’ll walk the quarter mile to the main drag of your small town to the apartment of someone whose single mom is waitressing the Friday night shift at the local thruway truck stop diner. You’ll play darts. Or euchre. You’ll hang out with guys wearing Carhartts or Levi’s and nylon baseball caps with John Deere or Peterbilt logos. Someone’s older brother will buy beer. Molson beer will be the most desired, especially for the guys who like to boast about their weekend activities on Monday at school. The alcohol content of Molson Canadian is higher so it’s cooler. Sometimes, you’ll end up with Genny Cream Ale or (the recently back in vogue) Pabst Blue Ribbon. Both of these are wretched. But sometimes, if you are lucky, you will get Yuengling lager. It was (and still is) made in Pennsylvania, and it tastes good. And as long as you don’t have to contend with your friend Eileen M. who dares you to do stupid things like drink the bottle of crème de menthe she found under the sink, just one bottle of Yuengling will make your night. That, and sitting on the lap of the boy in your chemistry class whose teeth you have a crush on.