What? In Philly we'd see this as the mere 'brew-haha' that it is.Lord Jim wrote:... Where did this guy think he was? Philadelphia?
This is reminiscent of my behavior many years ago. For many years I was a member of the Westinghouse Salaried Employee Association which was established in 1939. As a salaried employee the WSEA would act as an agent between Management and Employees. Not so much a union but an association that would bargain for certain employee rights and benefits, usually in tandem with UE-107, the blue-collar workers union.
Every year the WSEA would have a benefit banquet at the Chester Fire Hall catered by McAllister of Philly who were regionally famous for their delicious "Bookbinder's Style" snapper soup. (Served by white-gloved, tuxedoed, black men with engraved silver ladles and soup tureens.) After the meal there would be an awards and memorial ceremony, and wrapped up with an adult vaudeville-like act culminating with a striptease artiste' whose glory days were decades past.
Being one of the younger attendees at the dinner I would almost always get bored with the lack of stripper quality and quantity, however, one year in a moment of displeasure, I tossed an "empty" can of beer onto the stage -- not at, but near the reputed exotic dancer. My actions weren't a show stopper but it did cause a "brewhaha" of its own and I would later find out that my participation in future banquets was terminated.
As it was, I became the first and last WSEA member that was ever barred from participation in these association's dinners -- from inception in '39 to its end in 1989. Thousands would come and go but I was "the last man outstanding." Looking back -- yes, it was kind of stupid -- but whenever I meet an old colleague from my "Big Blue" days my antics at the banquet are sometimes brought up... and we all laugh.
So sit back, Ken Pagan, this, too, shall pass -- and have a brewsky on me.
