Crack open a cold one shirt free#

IвЂ™d seen it play out that way in my own life, though without a cold beer presented at the end.

Women took care of the house men spent weekends cutting the grass. I was supposed to be inside, cleaning the kitchen, prepping a delicious and healthy dinner for my family. ShouldnвЂ™t he enjoy himself after a hot day spent outside whacking weeds? I wished that kind of future for myself, though I knew that it wasnвЂ™t what I was supposed to want. I liked that dadвЂ™s ease with himself, his unruly Florida yard, his fleshy belly, his cold can. Her dad held his can of beer to us in mock salute and took a long, leisurely sip as she drove away. We climbed in her car and backed down the driveway. My friend came outside and hurriedly collected me. вЂњBetter not waste it,вЂќ he joked, and then he proceeded to lift the hem to his mouth, sucking the moisture straight from the fabric. He pointed at it, a rip right near his stomach, and managed to slop some beer down his front. While I waited for my friend to emerge from the house, he talked to me about his wrestling match with an overgrown bougainvillea that had torn a hole in his T-shirt. Even from several feet away, he reeked of musky, dank body odor.

A pronged blade of grass was plastered to the middle of his sweaty forehead like a weird green cross. Once, in high school, a friendвЂ™s dad greeted me from the driveway where he was busy cutting their massive front lawn. At sleepovers, my friendsвЂ™ dads sat in recliners, drinking beer and enjoying a game on TV, while we ran around the house trying to scare each other with ghost stories. Cookouts with friends at school generally had dads in the background flipping burgers on the grill and having a brew.

Crack open a cold one shirt free#

Commercials showed men hanging out together at bars, camping with their buddies, or fooling around at the beach, arms slung around beautiful, busty women with long gorgeous hair while they clutched something cold in their free hands. Hangover-free.Дespite everything I learned at church and from my parents-that alcohol was a hard drug in GodвЂ™s eyes, that imbibing was considered a Very Big Sin-drinking always seemed like an all-around good time. My immediate family was always there, though. They drank so much they didnвЂ™t show up for the free continental breakfast the next morning in the hotel lobby. They drank too much at the reception, drank so much that they danced a little too wild, laughed too hard, made one too many terrible jokes. There was a genuine sense of camaraderie among these men.

Whenever we happened to find ourselves out at functions where alcohol was served-usually weddings-I saw guys who were friends with my dad carrying around those icy-cold beers, tipping them back to take long pulls from the neck, clinking bottles with each other in celebration. My uncle, who was part of a fraternity in college, absolutely drank, and so did a lot of my fatherвЂ™s coworkers. There were men in my extended world who did. ThatвЂ™s not to say we werenвЂ™t friends with people who drank. Our communion included miniature shots of grape juice that represented ChristвЂ™s blood, instead of the usual red wine. Caffeine was just fine, but youвЂ™d never see anybody with a can of Budweiser. There were endless pots of coffee and jugs of sweet tea and bottles of Coca-Cola at every church mixer. We were Southern Baptists, and one of the very serious tenets of our faith was that we did not, under any circumstance whatsoever, imbibe alcohol. I grew up in a conservative evangelical household in Central Florida. While itвЂ™s true that I really love beer, my own father never touched the stuff.