Sometimes, It's About The Jar

12.1.08

Tonight, at 12:47am, my concrete floors conspired with Grant's Scotch whiskey to claim the life of my trusty whisky glass.

I reclaimed that glass from a falling-down barn behind the Washington Hotel during my first summer there. I found it holding rusty and fouled spark plugs, clearly the organizational method of someone like myself. Later that evening, around a communal table in the house I shared with the Eastern European workers of the hotel, I poured a tall slug of Jim Beam rye into that jar, to the mixed delight and horror of those around me. One, they didn't understand the drinking of straight whisky, and two, it reminded them of a Metallica song called, appropriately, 'Whiskey In The Jar.' The reference escaped me until they brought it up.

Of course, most any vessel will do the job when it comes to the task of conveying whisky into my head. But that jar was special. It had tradition. History. Meaning.

To me, that jar was a I-IV-V chord structure: solid. Dependable. I knew the form of the song I was listening to, but the content was always different. And even though a jar is a jar is a jar, it had its particular nuances that I learned over the years with it.

I'm going to miss it.

But I'll find another one. It won't be the same, but it will be good.