Sunday 31st May 2009 – Safety in Small Numbers

I may have left the impression that I got helplessly drunk last night: well, as drunk as it is possible for a dedicated beer drinker to get.  It's true: I did get drunk, but not helplessly.  It is hard to imagine a safer place.  The Sheriff was there; the Chief of Police was there; a proby US Marshal from Alabama was there.  For all I know, some Fish and Game Rangers were there, and life round here doesn't come much safer than them.

I once, in a previous life, had so much to drink that I fell over in the churchyard on the way home.  But it was in that part of the churchyard where the graves slope gently up to waist height, and was more of a comfortable roll than a fall.  I'm old enough to know where I'm safe.

And here, a month into rural America, I knew it was safe enough to get that drunk.  Which is quite a compliment to this small community.  I knew they'd put me on the bus.  I knew the bus driver would see me home.

And so they did. 

They even opened my favourite bar the following lunchtime, and staffed it with my favourite barmaid, hair-of-the-horse at the ready: with a clan of commiserators there for the same reason.

What you might call 'deliverance'!