1664

Today I am less of a grave man, but I am still not entirely over yesterday's issue. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, but I am quite sure that no one really gives a rat's piss or not, so I move on with the show. Today is Mother's Day in my country, and I guess I could elect to have as hero(ines) of the day all of those mother's out there, but I think that Mother's Day is one day where we tend to remember, usually fondly, our particular mother. We may remember our friend's mothers or our friends who are mothers, and for most of us that is still a fond memory. We remember the "June Cleaver" type mothers on this day, and I think we shove the undesirable part of the truth towards a back alley in our memories and minds. We don't remember the mother who ran her children into a pond, nor do we remember the fact that there are mothers out there that are about 22 years old, and have 4 or 5 children already. They are baby machines, not mothers. I understand, and accept the fact that this is not a popular viewpoint, but those are the types of "mothers" I see on a day to day basis, and so perhaps I am a bit jaded. I do not get to see too many of the June Cleaver or Clair Huxtable type of mothers. Plus, the wolf that raised me, while doing the best she could with the material she had (i.e. me) is not going to win any good housekeeping awards either. So, I apologize to the mothers of the world, but you just could not quite overcome those problems, and make it onto my hero(ine) podium. Therefore, I chose a year to be my hero, and not just any year. As you can tell by the picture above, it was a year that the lager I choose to poison myself with (otherwise known as Kronenbourg 1664), was first brewed. May 4th, 1664 to be exact, now I hear the gasps of "you drink a French beer? We knew your loyalty, and sanity were suspect." Well, yes I do drink a French beer, and my loyalty is to beer, my sanity is another question entirely. In mine defense, it is brewed in Strasbourg, France, which has been German several times in it's history. So, at least my beer is from the "German" part of France. 1664 was a leap year, it started on a Tuesday, and had a few interesting things happen in it, other than the invention of my beer. New Jersey became a colony of England, the Royal Marines were first formed, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the English, the French East India Company was formed, the Swedish statesman Arvid Horn was born, the Ottomans lost the battle of Saint Gotthard to the Austrian Empire, and future Sultan Mustafa II was born. These are just a few of the other reasons that 1664 was a good year for other than just beer, but mostly, for me at least, 1664 is a hero because of the beer. Though it might, on occasion, make me howl at the moon, and do some really stupid shit, it is still my choice of beer, and the major reason that for today the year 1664 (MDCLXIV), you are my (256th), hero of the day.