| BEER MY WAY |
| BEER |
| BEER MY WAY |
| Proudly Presents The award winning beer historian and raconteur Dan Hodge |
| THE CORONA CRAWL In these never before experienced times in America, and with everyone quarantined, it has become necessary to come up with new ideas to pass the hours. Everything is closed or limited! No more walking on the beach, no dining out, “social distancing” replacing gathering, limited shopping , eg. For God’s sake you can’t even get a haircut or go to church! For a beer lover and musician like myself, it’s especially taxing ,since all the pubs and breweries are closed and none of the bands of which I am a member are operating. Having spent the past three weeks holed up in my house, two of which saw me still adhering to my Lenten beer abstinence, (the Corona thing has made that vow relegated to the scrap heap of history) and slaving away refurbishing, repairing and repainting everything on my 50X100 estate, I really began to long for the joys of my previous life. Boredom was settling in. There is only so much TV watching, book reading and crossword puzzling one can do before he gets a little antsy. So I put my mind, or what was left of it, to the test in order to come up with a plan to preserve my sanity. Foreseeing the gloomy days ahead, I had taken the precaution to stock up on a generous supply of various styles of beer for any occasion in addition to enough ingredients to brew up four batches of home-brew, not to mention the four kegs of previously made brew ready and waiting to be tapped. My bands may have shut down, but my instruments were still on hand and waiting for the day when happy melodies would again pour forth. Combining these two scenarios, the obvious solution to cabin fever immediately popped into mind: a personal, musical pub crawl. Just a small amount of preparation was needed to ensure success. My two tap kegerator, currently dispensing an IPA and a stout, is only a few steps away from the basement beer fridge, loaded with plenty of Yuengling, Cigar City Maduro Brown Ale, Spaten Optimator, Jack’s Abbey Sunny Ridge Pils and other bottles and cans of styles and brands too numerous to mention. My tenor saxophone was uncased and positioned there along with the sheet music for “In Heaven There is No Beer”. In the finished part of the basement is my wife’s wine cooler, the bottom shelf of which has been slyly loaded with several bomber bottles of craft brew. My 1930’s Paramount tenor banjo is alongside , ready to strum out “I Like Beer”. Upstairs, the main refrigerator has been stuffed with Yuengling Premium with more of the same in the garage, and in the trunk of the Lincoln, where several more cases wait, just in case. An alto saxophone sits on the kitchen table ready to blast out “The Beer Barrel Polka”. My two louder, ear piercing instruments, the glockenspiel and the Great Highland Bagpipe are situated in the garage and shed, respectively. Simply, the idea is to slave around the yard all day, then crawl to the basement to obtain a brew and play a few tunes on the tenor sax. Then, crawl to the finished side, pick up the banjo, strum a few tunes and raid the wine cooler’s bottom shelf. A short crawl up the stairs leads to the alto sax, where a few more songs precede a trip to the kitchen to procure a Yuengling. Crawling out to the garage for another and banging out a few Mummers tunes on the glockenspiel, is but a precursor to the final destination, the shed, where awaits my bagpipes and a cooler full of various IPAs. Saving the pipes for last is very important, because being outside, “social distancing” becomes a concern, but with the pipes is not really a problem. A great many people run quickly in the opposite direction when they hear the skirl of the pipes approaching, and thus, I am able to complete my personal musical pub crawl without fear of inhaling someone else’s corona droplets. In fact, if everyone played the pipes there probably wouldn’t have been a pandemic. Cheers, Dan PS: A little tune I wrote for this occasion The Corona Polka (Sung to the tune of “Pennsylvania Polka”) Warm up some bat soup and let’s have some fun…. Do the Corona Polka! Add in some cat poop, and when it is done…. Do the Corona Polka It started in Wuhan, its now number one…. For sure its gonna find ya… Everybody’s got to join ya, To do the polka from Wuhan, China. Chorus: Bop, bop bop, bop bop, Bop, bop bop, bop bop Now…. we’re….. forced to….. dance aside our walls! Cause….they’ve closed-up….all the goddamned malls! Gin mills, taverns, barrooms all are gone Baseball, too is dead…..can doom be far ahead? That’s why…..I think There’s nothing left but drink! AND...... Can’t go to movies, and can’t go to mass…… Do the Corona polka! There’s no toilet paper to wipe off your ass…. Do the Corona polka! The stock market’s crashing, our money is gone Our lives are really dreary! Everything is not too cheery, so do the polka until you're weary |
| Someone has to say these things and it could only be Dan! |
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