My heart was racing and my mind was lost in the news of it all. My first girlfriend had just told me she was calling it off. Here we stood in our family’s double garage . . . her silent, and me angrily trying to get the gas cap off my 1978 brown Toyota truck. The truck was on empty, the cap stuck, and I needed to drive my newly minted ex the thirty minutes to her home.
The car I borrowed (the gas cap would have to wait until I got back) was the car two friends and I were going to drive to Nags Head, North Carolina for my senior year Spring Break. Yes . . . put the data together: I was 18 before I had my first girlfriend and my first beer. I’m pretty sure one led to the other. After an awkward and bitter good riddance at her door, I floored it (carefully) for home.
When we entered Kelly’s Restaurant and Tavern I was tired from the drive and relieved to be nine hours from heartache. It was an “R” month so we bellied up to the bar as confident as any three underage first-time drinkers could manage and sheepishly ordered a dozen oysters and a Budweiser. Broken heart, good friends, and a cold beer. That was a good beer.