When I first read that sign, I laughed. Dear Richard, my spousal roommate, refers to the spilling of distilled beverages as alcohol abuse.

I did not grow up knowing about alcohol abuse because we had no liquor in the house.

My mother was not anti-alcohol, she just had never lived where it was a part of life.

Actually, I just lied in the paragraph above. There was a slim brown bottle (which I later learned was called a “fifth”) in the blind corner of the kitchen dish cupboard. I think my mother stashed it there to make sure I didn’t discover it. When you are a single parent raising a supersnoop fourth-grader, you have no secrets. The label read Canadian Club. I later learned the purpose of the tiny glass stored upside-down on top of the unopened bottle. Mom never used it herself… until:

It happened a few years after I discovered the bottle. One afternoon, Mom suffered a bad fall at work. She struggled home, up our back stairs, and went straight to the cupboard. She filled up that little shot glass – from a three-quarters full bottle – and tossed it straight back, shuddering and grimacing before gasping. I think Canadian Club was the predecessor of Workman’s Comp.

I remember her putting the bottle back in its corner, saying, “Well, now you know where it is, but it’s not something you ever want to get involved with. It’s for adults only, and then only as medicine.”

Turns out she had opened the bottle previously for a strange reason. Her new pride and joy, the world’s most beautiful red convertible, was parked across the street from our apartment.

She arranged to park on the edge of the neighbors’ grass under the streetlight. But winter snowplows always packed her in, along with the blowing drifts hinting only at the car’s shape.

Storms were much heavier and more frequent in the ’50s.

Now back to the bottle of Canadian. Mom arranged, through a friend, to get her car plowed out and swept off before dawn. Mike, the man with the pickup truck and plow, worked all night on private jobs. Mom had to be to work by 7 a.m. She became his final customer with every snowstorm.

He was very surprised after the second plowing job, when she paid him at the downstairs door, and offered him the shot glassful of Canadian as she left for work. It began a ritual. It was the end of his night shift providing for his family, and she was both grateful and respectful of his work ethic. But somewhere, she had learned that a man who works hard enjoys a little sustenance.

This arrangement worked for another two or three years until she left that job. My mother’s friend who had referred the plowman, told her years later that if Mike finished at 4 or 5 a.m., he dozed in his truck until 6. He never missed plowing for her and he never raised his prices.

That family story was my first relationship, although from a distance, with alcohol’s charms. But I’m laughing out loud right now. I just realized that my mom could have replaced that bottle of Canadian Club ten times over without my knowing. Doubtful, though.

As my mother grew older, less frantic from working two jobs, and eventually into a career, she learned to enjoy a cheery drink before dinner. But she had personal rules. Never drink alone and never without something to eat beside it. “It’s not respectable to drink without eating. Only barflies do that.”

Not a pretty picture to me.

When she met the true prince who became my stepfather, she learned to drink a Scotch with him. After he passed, she switched from her summer drink, gin and tonic, to a gin martini.

One. She told me she tried a second one only once. My always-in-control mother realized that night that second martinis had other plans. Never again.

As I watched Mom gradually learn to drink responsibly across the decades, I learned firsthand using her standard. After a few youthful sidesteps, I figured it out. Liquor, for me, was fun, relaxing, sociable, enjoyable – often along for celebrations. Today, nothing makes me happier than a July gin and tonic on the porch with my family. Convivial toasts with friends run a close second.

It’s Tuesday as I write this. I’m looking forward to my cocktail with Dear Richard on Saturday night. Who knows? There might even be a nice dinner Thursday that is responsible for a stem of Chardonnay. And I know we won’t spill a drop.

Cheers!

Marcy O’Brien can be reached at Moby.32@hotmail.com