Prohibition Days on a College Campus (Cont.)
Screen 3 of 3

Surprised and angry that others were stealing our home brew, I ran them out of the garage with the information that "green brew" could kill them. Then I followed with the outlandish declaration that they were "breaking the law" and that I just might call the police: But one of them who had obviously been in and out of the garage more than once gleefully agreed that I certainly should call the police so that they could see what I had in the garage. As I remember, that comment ended the conversation.

By the time I had closed the heavy doors which creaked annoyingly on their rusty hinges, all the students had left and "Ham" was just arriving. He said he had heard up on the hill about the "free refreshments down at the Rock House" and that on his way to the garage he had met several students who were acting strangely--wild eyed and ashen faced. He added that some of them who had stopped in the wooded area close by seemed to be losing their lunch.

"Ham" and I then went back into the garage to check on the situation. We expected the worst but were pleasantly surprised to find the church picture not broken--though splattered generously with the home brew--and the twenty-gallon crock almost half full of the beverage we had made. We agreed quickly on what we had to do: bottle and store what was left of the "green" stuff before other students paid us a visit. Using some bottles we had borrowed the day before, we filled about thirty of them in a hurry and pushed tight-fitting cork stoppers down to the level of the liquid in each bottle. This last step turned out to be a mistake, but more about that later. We then stored the filled bottles in a box under another student's bed on the second floor of the Rock House.

Feeling sure we had taken all the necessary steps to avoid further pilfering by students and detection by my mother, I left the next morning to visit Pauline Hancock, my favorite girl friend who lived in Madisonville, a town in western Kentucky located about 100 miles from Bowling Green. My only means of transportation for a trip of that distance was to hitch-hike rides with people driving passenger automobiles or trucks, and that's what I did, while looking forward to a pleasant weekend.

But alas, the good time was short lived. At about mid-night of the day I arrived in Madisonville, my mother called me by long-distance telephone from Bowling Green. The time of the call and the tone of her voice made it immediately clear that something had gone wrong. It did not take long for my mother to tell me in angry words that she had found the home brew under the bed. When I interrupted to ask how she knew it was there, she exclaimed that one of the bottles had exploded and "the smelly stuff" (that's what she called it) ran across the upstairs floor and then leaked down on the kitchen stove below where she had been cooking supper. Hardly able to contain her rage, she then told me that when she tried to open and empty some of the other bottles into the bathtub, the home brew had squirted allover her and the bathroom ceiling!

I didn't time it, of course, but I feel sure that whole telephone conversation lasted no more than two minutes. In any case, it ended abruptly with my mother telling me in no uncertain terms to start for home immediately. When I reminded her it was then midnight and that I had to depend on hitch hiking to get to Bowling Green, she reluctantly agreed for me to leave early the next morning but reminded me I would have to clean up the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom as soon as I got back.

The reader can well imagine what this angry mother said to her wayward son when he returned to the Rock House. Just suffice it to say I never again made any home brew-neither in that garage nor anywhere else.

Chester C. Travelstead
November 23, 1981

[Vol. 7 CONTENTS]
[TRAVELSTEAD'S VIGNETTES HOME PAGE]
[DAVID'S HOME PAGE]
- 30 -