America’s relationship with alcohol is interesting, to say the least. The United States banned the sale of alcohol for 13 years. That contributed to an entire industry of bootlegging — a term I learned early in life when I was growing up in Oklahoma, a state that was one of the last to lift fairly restrictive laws on liquor sales. But bootlegging in Oklahoma is the subject for another time on this blog. Back to the subject at hand….
Once upon a time, one couldn’t (legally) drink beer in the United States. The government ratified the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, banning all intoxicating liquors, including beer. And thus began a 13 year period in U.S. history known as Prohibition. But in 1933, the government saw the light and President Franklin Roosevelt ended Prohibition. The date was April 7, so now we celebrate New Beer’s Eve each year on April 6!
I think New Beer’s Eve should be an official Holliday — if you think about it, it symbolizes how the government used to work and how it should work today…. We didn’t always get it right, but when we didn’t, we sure knew how to fix it. Think about all those people that had to go 13 years without a drink and the leaders who realized that was no way to live, committed to fixing it, and did so. Isn’t that the way our government is supposed to work? Maybe it will again someday… there’s always hope. Cheers!
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