"My wife is going to kill me!"
-- Benton County Judge Bob Clinard
On Aug. 22, Benton County Judge Bob Clinard was arrested on a charge of public intoxication while attending the Frisco Festival. My first thought upon reading the news was I was going to have to attend next year. To be honest, I went once in 1998 and was more than a little bored, so perhaps a correction of errors has occurred in the interval.
There was certainly no alcohol allowed in my house growing up. My father was a dedicated Southern Baptist dating back to his great-grandfather, who served with Gen. Stonewall Jackson during the War of Northern Aggression (as it was referred to in my house). It was Jackson, a strict teetotaler, who famously said "I am more afraid of alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy."
My dad came up with a fiendishly clever strategy to ensure I would not become a beer drinker. When I was 12 years old, our entire family went to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., while on a summer vacation. At the risk of dating myself, I must state for the record that at the time I went, it literally was just an ornate garden you walked through before going inside for a tour of the brewery, not the lavish theme park you will find there today.
To my total shock, after walking the gardens, Dad announced "Let's go inside and take the tour." As Dad has passed on, I will never know if this was initially part of his master plan to lure me inside or if he simply wanted to get out of that oppressive Florida heat then hatched his plan ad hoc, but I digress.
Every inch of my hormone-pumping brain told me this might be the best vacation ever. I had been to several gatherings with my older brother where beer had been distributed to the older kids with great ceremony. While I had never been offered a taste, they all acted like it was from heaven itself, so being front and center at the mothership seemed to assure answers would be revealed.
At the end of the tour, there was a large sitting area. At the far end was a large table where Busch employees were rapidly filling Dixie cups of beer and setting them out on it. A huge banner behind it proclaimed in large red block letters: FREE SAMPLES.
While I eyed the table with clarity similar to a hawk swooping toward a running squirrel, my father spoke the words that even today seem so utterly improbable: "Go ahead, you can try some beer if you want." Wow, I thought, and quickly stepped forward and took a full cup. (Needless to say, restrictions were obviously looser than the VIP bar lounge at a Miranda Lambert concert in Rogers.)
"Now," my father confided to me in a low voice, "you don't sip beer but take a big gulp." In retrospect I should have pondered what Dad would know about drinking any kind of alcoholic beverage, but at this point I was already all in and dutifully followed his advice. Yes, dear reader, the trap was set.
To this day I can remember that sensation of rotten water tumbling down my throat. Instead of a blissful and satisfying taste I had imagined, I got putrid waste liquid of some kind. "Why do people drink this?" I implored my bemused father. With a soft voice, he replied, "Now you know why I don't." I would not drink beer until I was 27 years old and working in Houston, Texas. It was a hot day when a friend bought an ice-cold pitcher at a restaurant. Desperate to get some relief from the heat, I took a big swig and ... wow, I thought, they sure did improve the taste of beer since I was 12!
Well, fortunately for the aforementioned Judge Clinard, all charges have been dropped after Benton County Prosecutor Jim Clark decided there was reasonable doubt due to a heart condition Clinard was diagnosed with after being transported to the hospital when he complained of dizziness.
Well. All's well that ends well. As Frank Sinatra once said: "Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy."
See you at next year's Frisco Festival.
SEY YOUNG IS A LOCAL BUSINESSMAN, HUSBAND, FATHER AND LONGTIME RESIDENT OF BENTONVILLE.
Commentary on 10/16/2014