Uncle Ernie and the Apple Tree

Way back in the good old days, after the Prohibition era but before Vatican II, my Great Uncle Ernie and his friends used to have a little passtime which irritated their mothers. It seems that in those days of lax environmental standards, those who braved the icy waters of the Pawtuxet River could claim the reward of a nice cold beer simply by swimming up near to a beer bottling factory and drinking the swill that ran off, through a pipe, into the river. MMMMMmmmmmm.

So naturally, all the teen boys, being irish and poor and more or less naughty, found this to be the One Best Way to spend an afternoon. Who would blame them? Frankly, it sounds pretty fabulous to me, too. In a ghetto irish way.

Let's be clear- Ernie's mom, Susan, was not into ghetto fabulous. She was a little prim. She had 3 girls and only 1 horrible boy. Her daughters were well behaved to a fault. They did as they were told. They shared. (My grandmother, for instance, married her sister's ex boyfriend.) So Ernie was probably to his mother what my eldest boy is to me. You know, a real PITA. and Im not talking about bread.

So at any rate, Susan forbade this activity and Ernie disobeyed. He came home one day, inebriated, stinking of beer run off and river water and my great-grandmother decided enough was enough. And so, in his less than coherent state, she wrangled him into his sister's dress and tied him to an apple tree in the front yard. Needless to say, all the neighborhood kids walking by found it a very entertaining sight.

And that, my friends, is Time Out. Old School.