Chuck Young and Dave Richie are onto something.
I attended their Cinco de Beero Saturday at T-Bones, with about 150 other lucky folks, and enjoyed a selection of regional craft beers and live acoustic music.
A ticket to the event got patrons five beverage chits, each of which was good for a half a glass of beer.
Sounds stingy? Not at all. It was a great idea, as people were sampling beer with widely different flavour, hop strength, bitterness and alcohol content. If you tried one and didn’t like it, you only had to suffer through half of it. And if you found a keeper, you could go back for more. It also allowed you to try a lot of variety without getting intoxicated.
For me, I played beer roulette, trying a selection of suds from Bayside, Grand River, Wellington, Black Oak, Walkerville, Railway City, Double Trouble and Kensington brewing companies.
Patrons received a scorecard of sorts when they walked in the door. You could read up on what to expect from a beer, in terms of flavour and kick, and decide if it was worthy of a test drive.
This was the perfect event for someone such as myself. I love trying different beers. Yes, there were a couple of selections that I put an “X” through, but most were quite enjoyable.
Young and Richie will likely hold other beer tastings in the future. Judging by the popularity of Saturday’s event, and there were people of all legal drinking ages in attendance, they put into action a good idea.
Sale-a-bration
Chatham Relay For Life hosted a Stuff Sale on the weekend, helping participating teams raise funds for the June 13-14 cancer-fighting event. Included in the fundraising Saturday was Drive 4UR Community with Victory Ford, and a barbecue.
Victory Ford brought 10 vehicles for people to test drive, ranging from full-size trucks to Lincoln luxury vehicles to the compact Ford Fiesta.
While the weather didn’t co-operate, the visitors certainly did, as more than 100 people showed up to test drive vehicles. For every test drive, Ford donated $20 to Relay For Life.
As for the barbecue, Schinkels’ Gourmet Meats supplied burgers and hot dogs, and their ballpark franks were a hot seller on the day. Since I had a pack of those at home, I opted for the burgers. No disappointment there.
Despite the weather, participating teams did have success in selling their wares and help fuelling their fundraising drive.
Overall, it was a good day. Thanks to everyone who took part.
The sacrifices I make
A lot of people seem to be suffering through spring illnesses these days, including my wife, Mary. Just before one of our daughter’s recent dance competitions, my wife got clobbered by a fever, chest congestion, and aches. We thought it was the flu.
Nope. Pneumonia.
As she struggled through the weekend, our girl had to hit the stage.
My wife was able to get our girl ready each morning by doing her hair and makeup. But I had to take our kid to the theatre for her performances.
No big deal, right? I’ve watched her perform countless times in the past.
Except as the lone parent at the competitions, I couldn’t go into the dressing rooms to help her change (with good reason as no dudes should be in the girls’ dressing areas), and since she spent basically all her time between performances in the change area or back stage rehearsing, communication was difficult.
Did she have everything she needed? What about changes to her hairstyle for the next dance? Was she hungry?
Thank God for other dance moms and dancers. They picked up the gap left by a sick mom and took great care of our kid.
That left me sitting in the theatre for the day. Watching dancers I didn’t know. Listening to pop music. Knowing other dance dads had gathered at one guy’s house to drink beverages and barbecue meat.
After six hours of exposure to dances and dance music, I escaped to Friendz just across the laneway. For starters, I parked there. As soon as they opened, I wanted to be a customer to keep them from getting mad at me using their lot and not patronizing their business.
The Sapporo I sucked back while watching sports was particularly tasty. The entire experience was all too brief, but incredibly therapeutic. It helped empower me to survive another couple of hours of dance.
But I did get to enjoy the meat that the lads cooked that afternoon, as we gathered after the adjudication. With my wife unable to attend, so I was given a take-home plate. The plate was a roasting pan. And it was full of chicken, pulled pork and cowboy coleslaw.
Unfortunately for Mary, she wasn’t up for much in the way of solid food. As a result, our daughter and I ate leftovers until midweek. It made cooking a breeze for me.
