Guest Essayist: Bill Volkart, Cincinnati, Ohio - Copyright 2008

My mother was a young woman during WWII and was one of the early liberated types called in those days a 'Rosie the Riveter' type. She loved working and going out with friends and soon developed a love of alcohol. In fact she was out drinking and dancing the night before I was born. Today that would be child endangering, then it was just a fact of life.

She was a good mom and loved me dearly but her love affair with alcohol was still with her. She taught me to read and by three I could read rather well for a little child. I read well enough to know the words Gin, Vodka and Bourbon for sure since those bottles were always around.

We only had one car since mom never learned to drive so we walked everywhere or rode the bus. By the age of five I was dutifully walking with mom everywhere we went. One of the places we walked about every three days was to the liquor store since mom would polish off the booze pretty quickly. This was lost on me, being five, but I knew where we were going and knew the clerk there by name and I could immediately find the brand of booze she wanted. This soon led to my knowing what kind of drinks she liked and knew how to make them. It was not long before I knew how to make a dry gin martini (her favorite drink) as well as whiskey sours and now and then a Tom Collins. I was probably the only five year old bartender in Cincinnati. My wife kids that mom taught me to read so I could learn to read the Barkeepers Friend drink mixing book.

As time passed I learned that not all moms drank like mine nor did their kids mix drinks. It made me worry about her but despite my protests she continued to drink anyway. It eventually took its toll on her and on August 11, 1978 when I was 26 years old, she died of liver failure. She was 56 at the time and it has taken me many years to get over her untimely death. But even now I remember our walks to the liquor store every three days. That liquor store is gone now and so is mom but I can still make one helluva dry gin martini.

If you are an irresponsible drinker, please stop. It affects more than just your liver, it ruins lives and makes some of the worst memories a child can carry through to their adult life. Don't live your life serving as a bad example. I have forgiven my mom, you may not be so lucky with your kids.

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I encourage every parent to read this essay and print it to pass on to other parents. My friend, Bill Volkart, in Cincinnati, Ohio, has written a story that is a virtual mirror of my life as a teenager. My mother was also an alcoholic and abused her body to the extent that she passed away before she was 42 and I was 15. The incidents I experienced often haunt me to this day as I recall the stigma and embarrassment because most of my friends knew my mother was a drunk--there were few "soft terms" then for alcoholism as "political correctness" was yet to be discovered. I was not like my friend, who learned how to mix drinks; rather, I became a professional at finding where mother hid her booze, and then I would throw it away, naively thinking I was doing the right thing. Sixty-one years later I vividly remember helping my mother as she struggled getting off the bus late at night, after having been in a bar most of the evening. Those experiences were sufficient warnings to me about the control some people lose when they become drinkers. THE WORDWRIGHT