Good Neighbor Sam

A few years ago when Cindy went with me on a trip to Boston.  I was running in the marathon, and afterwards we would be spending the rest of the week seeing the sights and enjoying all that ‘America’s Walking City’ had to offer.

The day after the marathon Cindy and I scheduled the first tour of the day (10:00 a.m.) at the Samuel Adams Brewery.  That would allow us the rest of the day for some of the other things Cindy wanted to torture me with.  Sorry, that was supposed to read tour with me: other things Cindy wanted to tour with me.  (Damn autocorrect.)

So we arrive a bit early but not early enough to beat the other 10:00 a.m. group that would also be touring the brewery.  They arrived in one of those huge tour buses with the tinted windows and the name of the bus line embossed on the side in letters that were closer to calligraphy than cursive.

When the bus door opened we watched 60 or more men and women from an assisted living community somewhere in Pennsylvania begin piling out.  (Does molasses ‘pile out’ of a bottle?  Maybe it was more like they were ‘pouring out.’  But that makes it sound like a mob scene and this was far from that.  So maybe ‘piling out’ is the phrase I’m looking for.  It will have to do unless I can come up with something better.  Perhaps ‘streaming out.’  That sounds slower, gentler and more methodical.  ‘Streaming out’ it is.)

So anyway these 60 or more men and women get out of the bus and make their way into the brewery.  Cindy and I follow them inside where we were divided into three different groups.  Our tour guide was both knowledgeable and effervescent; every sentence she spoke seemed to tantalize me more and more as it continued to hint of the promise of a sip or two of the delicious golden beverage being created before our very eyes waiting for us at the conclusion of the tour.  

Forty-five agonizing minutes later we were seated at the end of a long wooden table along with the other members of our entourage.  There were two other long tables, one on either side of ours occupied by the others from the tour bus.  It was now time for the moment of truth.

One of the tour guides talked much too long about the pitchers of beer he and the other two tour guides were holding in their hands; after all the longer he spoke the warmer the beer would eventually be.  Was he inSANE? 

Finally the pitchers were placed—one at the end of each table—and made available for our eager taste buds to sample.  Tiny glasses (six ounces, perhaps?) were stationed on the table in front of each one of us.  I worried the pitcher might not have much left in it by the time it made its way down the table to Cindy and I; after all there were 20 people with six-ounce glasses and since a pitcher contains maybe 64 ounces it didn’t look good for the home team.

But lo and behold: When the pitcher got to Cindy and I it was still halfway full (note the optimism; I could have easily said it was half-empty)!  It didn’t stay that way for long, as the beer tasted just as good on my tongue as it had in my mind during the 2,700 agonizing seconds of the tour.  It must have tasted that way to Cindy as well since she had no problem keeping up with me, ounce-for-ounce. 

Then the tour guide presented another type of beer and before long a second pitcher of beer—this one almost ¾ full--found its way home, if you know what I mean.  Apparently the folks from the tour bus were either pouring what amounted to a couple of drops of beer into their cups or were not taking any beer at all.  Could we have possibly picked a better day for a tour of the Samuel Adams Brewery? 

It wasn’t long before pitchers of beer from the other two tables were finding their way to Cindy and I.  The kind people from Pennsylvania realized how much we were enjoying ourselves and were doing their level best to make us happy.  Besides, collectively they had about as much use for beer as I do for cigarettes, Georgia Bulldog football or a kidney stone.

An hour or so later I was living proof of the well-known phrase:

Too much of a good thing.

Meanwhile Cindy had been pacing herself for the last 30 minutes or so and was eager and excited to start touring Boston once the brewery tour was finally over.  (I use the word ‘finally’ as if it was someone’s fault other than mine that it was past noon before the tour was officially over.  Believe me when I say: The fault was all mine.)

I on the other hand was ready for a nap.  That’s why it made perfect sense for me to hop on the tour bus with the calligraphy on the side...along with everyone else on the tour.