My Grandfather Was an Atlantic City Rum-runner; I Drive to Delaware

Genealogy is a hobby of mine, in part born from listening to my family telling stories during holiday dinners. Recently, while gathering some information about my mother's family, she told me that she'd recently heard from her sister--my aunt--that their father--my grandfather--was a rum-runner.

My grandfather could make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs

"What?" My mother was not aware of this.

"Well," my aunt said, "remember when Uncle Joe would yell at [his kids], and dad would say, 'Hey, lay off, we did worse things when we were their age'? Well, that's the 'worse thing'--he ran alcohol between Atlantic City and Philadelphia during Prohibition."

Apparently he could get from AC to Philly in about an hour--keep in mind, this was before the AC Expressway.

Actually, that may have been in his favor.

So aside from a certain pride in having a small-time criminal in my family--and apparently my step-great-grandmother did a similar thing up in Brooklyn, because who's going to question a nice old German lady with a derringer in her pocket?--this knowledge put me in mind of something else.

Pennsylvania wants to privatize its liquor stores. And even me, the flaming liberal, is all for it, because I'm tired of driving down to Delaware in order to get a decent price and selection.

Two years ago, my husband and I took a road trip through New York and New England. While staying around Lake George, I had to run into a Rite Aid for some deodorant. There I saw a thing unimaginable in Pennsylvania:

What is this I don't even...

Beer! Cases of beer! For sale in a drugstore! That last irony not lost on me, I stared, in awe of a state where I could buy beer in the same place I could pick up a Vicodin prescription, condoms, Cheetos, and suntan lotion.

In Pennsylvania, you can only get the last four in one store. Well, you might get Cheetos at the beer distributor. But for the most part, you can't sell beer in grocery stores or drugstores, unless the grocery store has a restaurant--which essentially means "Only in Wegmans and Sheetz". And while I love Wegmans' beer selection (and, well, everything else they sell), the closest one is about ten miles away.


Yeah, you can't really just walk into a grocery store and pick up a six pack, much less a case. It's very rare. And supposedly the state wants to change that.


Or do they?

Socially conservative lawmakers who want to tamp down alcohol consumption also could oppose the bill.

Turzai has argued that Pennsylvanians pay high prices for a low selection, while the state's dual roles of selling alcohol and enforcing drunken driving and alcohol laws represent a conflict of interest.

Under his bill, the state would auction off 1,250 retail licenses - 750 to big retailers such as supermarkets, and the rest to smaller enterprises.

So what worries me--because as far as I know, there aren't any actual bills--is the idea that socially conservative lawmakers will privatize the system--but only allow a small number of stores.  If we're going to privatize, let's throw open the doors. Let me buy beer at Rite Aid if I want. Let the bars stay open till 4 am if they want. Don't make me drive to Delaware to buy wine or scotch at a more reasonable price--let me buy wine at the grocery store.

When I worked in retail, I had to card kids buying cigarettes or porn. It's no different carding them for alcohol. The people of Pennsylvania aren't children, we can take care of ourselves. We can buy beer on Sundays without becoming alcoholics, and we can buy wine at the grocery store just like people in other states. It works elsewhere around the country--why not here?

I get the revenue argument, and I get the union argument--those are separate issues, and worth considering, especially how the state would make up the lost revenues if they gave up the state stores. But what I don't like is the argument--which I've heard often in this state--that if we allow people to buy alcohol outside of a strictly regulated system run by the state government, chaos will rule and the state will be overtaken by a drunken orgy.

If only.

A (Very Late) Happy Imbolc!

For those who don't know, Imbolc--falling roughly halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox (or, Christmas and Easter)--is the old Irish start of spring; it's a feast of purification¹, and comes a day after the feast of Brigit, the goddess and the saint. In the Catholic calendar, it's also Candlemas/the Feast of the Purification of Mary. But you probably know it best as Groundhog Day.

Using this day for prognosticating the future weather goes way back, certainly long before some Pennsylvanian marmot chewed his way out of the ground. Plus, before him, it used to be a snake. To read a good summary of how Brigit relates to spring and predicting the weather in February, check out Alexander Carmichael's classic Carmina Gadelica:

The serpent is supposed to emerge from its hollow among the hills on St Bride's Day, and a propitiatory hymn was sung to it. Only one verse of this hymn has been obtained, apparently the first. It differs in different localities:--

'Moch maduinn Bhride, Thig an nimhir as an toll, Cha bhoin mise ris an nimhir, Cha bhoin an nimhir rium.'

Early on Bride's morn The serpent shall come from the hole, I will not molest the serpent, Nor will the serpent molest me.

Other versions say:--

La Feill na Bride, Thig nighean Imhir as a chnoc, Cha bhean mise do nighean ’S cha dean i mo lochd.' [Imhir, 'La Fheill Bride brisgeanach Thig an ceann de in chaiteanach, Thig nighean Iomhair as an tom Le fonn feadalaich.' 'Thig an nathair as an toll    La donn Bride, Ged robh tri traighean dh’ an    Air leachd an lair.' [t-sneachd

The Feast Day of the Bride, The daughter of Ivor shall come from the knoll, I will not touch the daughter of Ivor, Nor shall she harm me. On the Feast Day of Bride, The head will come off the 'caiteanach,' The daughter of Ivor will come from the knoll With tuneful whistling. The serpent will come from the hole    On the brown Day of Bride, Though there should be three feet of snow    On the flat surface of the ground.

The 'daughter of Ivor' is the serpent; and it is said that the serpent will not sting a descendant of Ivor, he having made 'tabhar agus tuis,' offering and incense, to it, thereby securing immunity from its sting for himself and his seed for ever.

In America, the day has become associated with the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. In one of those wonderful cosmic convergences, the theme of the movie actually fits the original theme of the holiday: Phil Connors, the miserable, venal weatherman played by Bill Murray, spends lifetimes living the same day over and over again, indulging in every vice you can find in a small Pennsylvania town, before slowly learning to become a better person. What's funny, of course, is that the origin of Imbolc--like the Roman Lupercalia, or the Catholic Lent--is in a time of purification. Like Phil, we're all living the same day over and over again; sometimes we waste our time, which is easy, especially in winter when we're miserable. But hey, unlike Phil, we don't have an eternity to get it right.  We invent times like Imbolc to get ourselves back on track, to remind ourselves that winter doesn't last forever, that spring is coming, and we need to get our heads together. To purify ourselves, to make ourselves better people.

Hey--the groundhog called for an early spring. Better get crackin'.

1. Eric Hamp, 'Imbolc, Oimelc', Studia Celtica, 14/15 (1979/1980)

At Least I Can Finally Buy Beer on Sundays. But Only After 11 AM.

New Jersey's Assembly moves to legalize medical marijuana, joining a growing list of pragmatic states; meanwhile back here in Pennsylvania, it's barely the 20th century, and we still can't decide if selling beer in the supermarket will result in rum, Romanism, and rebellion. But if we sell it with a sandwich, that you have to eat in the store, that's just tolerable.

Given how much money the state makes in taxes on alcohol, you'd think they'd jump at the chance to legalize medical marijuana.