Alcohol
January 5, 2020
Animals enjoy to get to the outer space, while still breathing on earth. How many videos are there online of elks, dears, chimps, gorillas, rabbits that ate too many fermented fruits, and have what we call a “buzz”. Tough I can tell you that a dear in winter time, trapped in the lower branches of some trees while being considerably drunk, is nothing else but a spectacle to watch it does not vary a lot from the spectacle you see at home so many times on holidays, parties, weddings, baptisms. You really get to the conclusion we are all animals, no matter the Jaguar someones has or the Gucci, there is still more “puchi” to chug here and there. Alcohol is cultural, it has a different impact everywhere it goes. Russians in the WWII while invading everything around them, drank and raped everybody, except the men and the mothers. The grandmother of my grandfather, on my mums side, had a small rural hostel. When the Russians came, she tried to hide all the wine, put it bellow earth with the help of her husband, and her grandson. The Russians troupes arrived after the germans left on train taking part of the gypsy population. They tossed sweets from the trains to all the kids they encountered in their way. My grandad was not a nazi, but he loved nazis sugar. The Russian mingled more with the people, all the young girls had to hid as the gypsies and the jew hid while the germans where there. But the lands needed to be worked, ploughed, and seeded, or no food was there for no one, the women had to work the land as of the men were at war. My great-grandmother worked as a cleaning lady at a highschool, the russians troops irrupted in the school walls and in her chambers, they saw this woman with her small daughters and let her be. I cannot say the same for the female students that were there. My grandfather lived one year and a half with the russians at his grandmother rural hostel. In that time, every single drop of alcohol in and out the house was drunk, vodka, tuica, wine, pãlincã, visinie, cough syrup, sleep syrup and even the perfume. My grandpa 10 years of age had a gun as a present gift from the russians soldiers. They laughed and waited for him to shoot himself. Even the drunk people had their spectacle. Who said that a drunk army couldn’t conquer? Well.. The Dacians, ancient romanians that believed in Zamolxis god of the sun. The Roman Empire was planning to invade Dacia, so the government, the elders, decided to ban alcohol. Nobody cared and they kept on drinking, might be something in the cold weather or the slavic blood but the romans were still coming nearer. So Deceneu, High Priest of the Dacians, having nothing else to do, burnt most of, if not all, of the vines of the Dacians, so no more wine for the upcoming years. When the romans arrived, 30 years later, the dacians were sober and lost to the Roman Empire. It makes me wonder, thinking of my grandparents stories as they were kids, would the Dacians had won if there were still all drunk?