 Section No. 1 of The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis. Chapter No. 1 Introducing the Old Soak Our friend the Old Soak came in from his house in Flatbush to see us not long ago, in anything but a jovial mood. I see that some persons think there is still hope for a liberal interpretation of the law so that beer and light wines may be sold, said we. Hope, said he moodily, is a fine thing, but it don't gurgle none when you pour it out of a bottle. Hope is all right, and so is faith, but what I would like to see is a little charity. As far as hope is concerned, I'd rather have despair, combined with a case of bourbon liquor than all the hope in the world by itself. Hope is what these here fellows has got that is trying to make their own with a tea kettle and a piece of hose. That's awful stuff, that is. There's a friend of mine made some of that stuff and he was scared of it. Anything before he drinks any he will try some of it on to a dumb beast. But there ain't no dumb beast anywhere as handy, so he feeds some of it to his wife's parrot. That their parrot was the only parrot I ever know of that wasn't named Polly. It was named Peter, and was supposed to be a gentleman parrot for the last 8 or 10 years. But whether it was or not after it drank some of that their homemade hooch, Peter went and laid an egg. That their homemade stuff ain't anything to trifle with. It's like amateur theatricals. Amateur theatricals is all right for an occupation for them that hasn't got anything to do nor nowhere to go. But they cause useless agony to an audience. Homemade booze may be all right to take the grease spots out of the rug with, but it ain't for the human stomach to drink. Homemade booze is either a farce with no serious kick to it or else a tragedy with an unhappy ending. No sir as soon as what is left has been drunk I will kiss goodbye to the shores of this land of holiness and suffering and go to some country where the vegetation just naturally works itself up into liquor in a professional manner and end my days in contentment and inequity. Unless he continued with a faint gleam of hope, the smuggling business develops into what it ought to and it may. There is some friends of mine already picked out a likely spot on the shores of Long Island and dug a hole in the sand that cakes might wash into if they was throwed from passing vessels. They have hoisted friendly signals but so far nothing has been throwed overboard. He had a little of the right sort on his hip and after refreshing himself he announced, I'm riding a diary, a diary of the past, kind of gal dinged autobiography of what me and old King Booze done before he went into the grave and took one of my feet with him. In just a little while now there won't be anyone in this here broad land of ours speaking of it geographically that knows what an old fashioned bar room was like. They meet up with a word, future generations of posterity will, and wonder and wonder and wonder just what a saloon could have resembled and they will cudgel their brains in vain, as the poet says. Often in my own perusal of reading matter I run into institutions that I would like to know more of but no one ever sat down and described them because everyone knowed all about them in the time when the writing was done. Often I thought I would have liked to know all about them hanging gardens of Babylon for instance and who was hanged in them and what for but nobody ever described them as far as I know. Have you got any of it written we asked him. Here's the start of it said he. We present it just as the old soak penned it. Section 2 of the Old Soak, Hail and Farewell This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis. Chapter 2. Beginning the Old Soak's History of the Rum Demon I will hear under set down nothing but what is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. Well in the old days before everybody got so gosh almighty good. Bar rooms was so frequent that nobody thought of setting down their scenery and habits. Usually you went into it by a pair of swinging doors that met in the middle and didn't go full length up. So you could see over the top of the door and if anyone was to come into one door you didn't want to have talk with or anything. You could see him and have a chance to gravitate out the door at the other end of the bar room while he was getting in. But you couldn't see into the windows of them as a habitual custom. Because who could tell whether a customer's family was going to pass by and glance in. Well in your heart you knew you was doing nothing to be ashamed of. But all families even in the good old days contained some prohibition relations. The good book says that flies in the ointment sinned forth a smell to heaven. Well you felt more private like with the windows fixed that a way. They was painted soaped in some stained glass. It had its good sides and it had its bad sides. But I will say I have been completely out of touch just as much as if I was a native of some hot country with all kinds of morality and religion. Even since the bar rooms was shut up. From childhood's earliest hours religion had been one of my favorite studies. And I never let a week pass without I get down on my knees some time or another and pray about something any more than I would let a week pass without I wash all over. It was early recollections of a good woman that kept me religious and I hope I do not have to say anything further to this gang. Well in spite of my religion I never went to church none because it ain't reasonable to suppose that a man could keep awake. He thinks what if I should nod and he does. So that always throwed me back onto the bar rooms for my religion. Well then the first thing you know when you are up by the free lunch counter eating some of that delicatessen in comes a girl and says to contribute to your cause. Well what cause are you you ask her. Well she says salvation army or the volunteers or what not and so forth as the case may be or maybe she was boosting for some of these new religions that gets out of paper and these girls go around and sell it for ten cents which they always set a date for the world coming to an end. Well then you got a line on her religion and you was ashamed not to give her a quarter for you had spent a dollar for drinks already that morning and then all through the day there was other religions come in one after another or maybe the same religion over and over again. Well then you kept in touch with religions and it made a better man out of you and along about evening time when you figured on going home you felt like it wouldn't be right to tell any perverications to your wife about how you come to be so late. So you just said over the phone. I am starting right away. I stopped into Ed's place to play a game of pool after work and met a fellow I used to know. I couldn't get away from him and was too thoughtful of you to insist for him to come home to dinner. So he insisted I ought to have a drink with him for old time's sake. And if it hadn't been for being in contact with different religions all day you would have lied outright to your wife and felt mean as a dog about it when she found you out. Well then it needs no further proof that the abolishment of the saloon has taken away the common people's religions from them but it is my message to tell just what the bar rooms was like and not to criticize the laws of the land even when they are damn foolish and so many of them are. So I will confine myself to describing the bar room and the rum demon. Well I never saw much rum drunk in the places where I hung out. Sometimes some barkardy into a cocktail, but for my part cocktails always struck me as wicked. The good book says that the Lord started the people right but that men had made many adventures. Well then I took mine straight for the most part except when I needed some special kind of pick up in the morning. And the good book says not to tarry long over the wine-cup and I never done that neither except a little rind wine in the summertime but mostly took mine straight. Well then to come down to describing these phantom places over which the raven says never more but the posterity of the future may wish to have its own say so about. Well there was a long counter always kept wiped off, not like these here sticky soda water counters which the boys and girls back of them always look sticky too. And their sleeves look sticky and the glasses is sticky but in a decent bar room the counter was kept swiped off clean and self-respectable. And there was a brass rail with cuspidors near to it. If you wanted to cuspidate it was handy right there and there's no place to hawk or cuspidate in these here soda water dives. Not that I ever been in them much all that stuff rots the lining of your stomach. As far as I am concerned being the posterity of a lot of Scotch ancestors I never liked soft stuff in my insides. I never drunk nothing but whiskey for comfort and pleasure and I never took no medicine in my life exact calamel. And I always held to the Presbyterian religion as my favorite religion because those three things has got some kick when took inside of you. Well then to get down to telling just what these places was like it was surprised this generation of posterity how genteel some of them was which I will come down to in my next chapter. Well I will close this chapter. End of section two. Section three of The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Don Johnson, Redondo Beach, California. The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis. Chapter three. Liquor and Henry Sims. I never could see liquor drinking as a bad habit as the old soak. Though I admit fair and free it will lead to bad habits if it ain't watched. And these here remarks of mine I aim to tell the truth and nothing but the truth so help me gehorcify as a good book says. One fellow I know whose liquor drinking led to bad habits was my old friend Henry Sims. Every time Henry got always jingled he used to fall down stairs and he fell down so often that he got to be our habit. And you couldn't call it nothing else. He thought he had to. One time late at night I was going over to Brooklyn on the subway and I seen one of these here escalators with Henry onto it moving upwards. Only Henry wasn't riding on his feet he was riding on the spine of his back. And we got to the top of the thing and it skated him out onto the level. What does Henry do? But pitch himself onto it again head first and again he was carried up. After I'd seen him do that three or four times I rode up to where Henry was floundering and I asked him what he was doing. I'm falling down stairs says Henry. What are you doing that for I said? I'm drunk ain't I says Henry. You fool you know I always fall down stairs when I'm drunk. How many times you're going to fall down these stairs I asked him. I ain't fell down these stairs once yet says Henry. Though I must have tried to a dozen times I've been trying to fall down these stairs ever since dust set in. But there's something wrong about them. If I didn't know I was drunk I would swear these stairs were moving. They'd be moving I tells him. You go about your business he says. And don't mock a man that's doing the best he can. Of course they ain't moving. They only looked like they was moving to me because I'm drunk. You can fool me. And I left him still trying to fall down them stairs and still being carried up again. Which as I remarked at first only goes to show that drink will lead to habits if it ain't watched. And even when it ain't a habit itself. Do you have any more of your history of the rum demon written we asked him. Ah ha he said and he left us with a second installment. End of section three. Recording by Don Johnson Redondo Beach California. Section four of the old soak and hail and farewell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis. Chapter four. Old Soak's history. The bar room as an educative influence. Well as I said in my first installment some of them bar rooms was such genteel places. They would surprise you if you had got the idea that they was all gems of iniquity and wickedness with the bartenders mostly in clean collars and their hair slicked. Not like so many of these soda water places where the hair is stringy. Well this is for future generations of posterity that will have never saw us alone. And the whole truth is to be sat down so help me God. And I will say that it took a good deal of sweeping sometimes to keep the floor clean and often the free lunch was approached with one fork for several people. Especially the beans. Well it has been three or four years even before that 18th commandment passed since free lunch was what it once was. And some bar rooms was under par. But I'm speaking of the average good class bar room where you would take your own children or grandchildren as the case may be. There was some very kind hearted places among them where if a man had spent all his money already for his own good they would refuse to let him have anything more to drink until maybe someone set them up for him. But to get down to brass tacks and describe what they look like more thoroughly I will say they was always attractive to me with those long expensive mirrors and brass fixtures like a scene of elegance and grandeur out of the Old Testament where it tells of Solomon in all his glory. And if a gent would forget to be gentile after he took too much and his money was all spent and imbue himself with loud talk or rough language and maybe want to hit somebody and there was none of his friends there to take charge of him often I have seen such throat out on their ear. For the better class places always aimed to be decent and orderly and never to have an indecent reputation for loudness and rough houseness. Well I will say I have not kept up with politics like I used to since the bar rooms was vanished. My eyes ain't what they used to be and the newspapers are different from each other. So who can tell what to believe? But in the old days you could keep in touch with politics in the bar rooms it made a better citizen out of you for every man ought to vote for what his consciousness tells him is right and to abide in politics by his consciousness. Well closing the bar room has shut off my chance to be imbued with political dope and who to bet on in the next election and I'm not so good a citizen as before the saloons was closed. I would not know who to bet on in any election but I used to get straight tips and in that way took an interest in politics which a man is scarcely to be called an American citizen unless he does. Well I see everywhere where all the doctors and science sharks say to keep in touch with outdoor sports if you want to keep young. I used to know all about those outdoor sports and who the Giants had bought and what they paid for him and who was the best pitcher and what the dope was on tomorrow's entries at Havana. But all that is taken away from me now the saloons is closed and I got no chance to get into touch with outdoor sports and I feel it in my health. Some of these days the prohibition elements will wake up and see they have ruined the country but then it will be too late. Taking the sports away from a nation is not going to do it any good when the next war comes along if one does. Well I promised I would describe more what they looked like. I will tackle that in the next chapter so I will bring this installment to a close. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Matthew D. Robinson The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis Chapter 5 Look Out for Crime Waves They're going to take our tobacco next are they? said the Old Soak Well me I won't struggle none. I ain't fit to struggle. I'm licked. My heart's broke. They can come and take my blood if they want it and all I'll do is ask them whether they'll have it or drop it at time or the whole concerns in a bucket. All I say is watch out for crime waves. I don't threaten nobody. I just predict. If you ever wake up about one o'clock in the morning two or three miles from a store and that store likely closed and no neighbor nearby and the snow drift in the road shut and wanted a smoke and there wasn't a single crumb of tobacco no wares in the house you know what I mean. You go and look for old cigar and cigarette butts to crumble into your pipe and there ain't none. You go through all your clothes for little mites of tobacco that have maybe jolted into your pockets and there ain't none. Your summer clothes is packed away into the bottom of a trunk somewhere and you wake your wife to find the key to the trunk and you get the clothes and there ain't no tobacco in them pockets either. And then you and your wife has words and you sit and suffer and cuss and chew the stem of your empty pipe. By three in the morning there ain't no customary crime known you wouldn't commit. By four o'clock you begin to think in new crimes and how you'd like to commit them and then make up comic songs about them and go and sing them songs at the funerals of them you've slew. Hark to me! If tobacco goes next there'll be a crime wave. Take away a man's booze and he dies or embraces dope or religion or goes abroad or makes it at home or drinks varnish or gets philosophical or something. But tobacco? No, sir. There ain't any substitute. Why, the only way they're getting away with this booze thing now is because millions and millions of shattered nerves is soullessing and soothing their selves with tobacco. I'm mild myself. I won't explode. I'm getting my booze. I know where there's plenty of it. My heart's broke to see the saloons closed and I'm licked by the overwhelming righteous but I won't suffer any personal for a long time yet. But there's them that will and on top of everything else tobacco is to go. All right, take it. But I say solemn and warningly look out for crime waves. The godly and the righteous can push us wicked persons just so far but worms will turn. Look at the Garden of Eden. The mammal of iniquity ain't never yet been completely abolished. Look at the history of the world. Every once in a while it is always looked as if the pious and the uplift it was going to bring in the millennium with bells on it. But something has always happened just in time and the mammal of unrighteousness is coming to his own again. I ain't threatening. I just predict. Look out for crime waves. As for me, I may never see Satan come back home. I'm old. I ain't long for this weary land of purity and this veil of tears and virtue. I'll soon be in a place where the godly cease from troubling and the wicked are at rest. But I got children and grandchildren that'll fight against the millennium to the last gasp if I know the breed and I'm going to pass on full of hope and trust and calm belief. Here concluded the old soak unscrewing the top of his pocket flask. Here is to the mammal of unrighteousness. He deposited on our desk the next installment of his history. End of section five. Section six of the old soak and hail and farewell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Don Johnson, Redondo Beach, California. The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquise. Chapter six. Continuing the old soak's history. The bar room and the arts. Well, I promise to describe what the saloon that has been banished was like so that future generations of posterity will know what it was like they never having seen one. And maybe being curious, which I would give a good deal to know how they got all their animals into the ark. Only nobody that was on the spot thought to write it down and figure the room for the stalls and cages and when it comes to that how did they train animals to talk in those days like bailing on his ass and Moses knocking the water out of the rocks always interested me. Which I will tell the truth, so help me. It used to be this way some had tables and some did not. But I never was much a one for tables for if you set down your legs and don't tell you anything about how you are standing yet till you get up and find that you have went further than you intended. But if you stand up your legs give you a warning from time to time you'd better not have but one more. Well, I will tell the truth and one thing is the treating habit was a great evil. They would come too fast and you would take a light drink of rind wine whilst they was coming too fast and that way use up considerable room that you could have had more advantage from if you had saved it for something important. Well, the good book says to beware of wine and evil communications corrupts a good many. Well, what I always wanted was that warm feeling that started about the equator and spread gentle all over you till you loved your neighbor as the good book says and wine never had the efficiency for me. Well, I will say even if the treating habit was a great evil it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Well, I promise to come down to brass tacks and describe what the old time bar room looked like. Some of the old timers had sought us on the floor which I never cared much for that it was never looked genteel to me and almost anything might be mixed into it. I will tell the whole truth so help me. And another kick I got is about business advantages which you used to be lined up by the bar five or six of you and suppose you was in the real estate business or something a fellow would say he had an idea that such and such a section would be going to have a boom and that started you figuring on it. Well, I missed a lot of business opportunities like that since the bar room has been vanished. What can a country expect if it destroys all the chances a man has to get ahead in business? The next time they ask us for business as usual to win a war with this country we'll find out something about closing up all chances a man has to get tips on their business chances. Well, the good book says to laugh and grow fat since the bar room has been taken away. What chance you got to hear any new stories I would like to know? Well, so help me I said I would tell the truth and the truth is some of them stories was not fit to offer up along with your prayers but at the same time you got acquainted with some right up to date fellows. Well, what I want to know is how you could blame a country for turning into Bolshe visitors if all chance for sociability is shut off by the government from the plain people. Well, the better class of them had pictures on the walls and since they had been taken away what chance has a busy man like me got to go to a museum and see all them works of art and painted by artists and looking as slick and shiny as one of these here circus lithographs. Well, a country wants to look out what it is doing when it shuts off from the plain people all the chance to educate itself on the high arts and hand painting. Some of the frames by themselves must have been worth a good deal of money. The good book says you shall not live by bread alone and if you ain't got a chance to educate yourself in the high arts or nothing after a while this country will get to the place where all the foreign countries will laugh at us but we won't know good hand painting when we see it. I was a good story to all them hand paintings and often when business was slack I used to talk with Ed, the bartender about them paintings and what he supposed they was about. What chance have I got to go and buy a box to set in every night at the Metropolitan Opera House I would like to know and hear singing while the good book says not to have anything to do with a man that ain't got music in his soul and the right kind of crowd and the right kind of bar room could all get to singing together and furnish me with music. A government that takes away all its music like that from the plain people had better watch out. Some of these days there will be another big war and what will they do without music? I always been fond of music and there ain't anywhere I can go that it sounds the same but I must have warmed up and friendly and careless let alone taking away my chance to meet up with different religions taking away my music has been a big blow to me. While I will tell you the truth so help me it was a place to drop into on a rainy day. You don't want to be settling down at home on a rainy day reading your Bible all the time but since they closed I had to do a lot of reading to get through the day somehow and the wife is too busy to talk to me and the rest of the family is at work or somewhere. Well another evil is I've been doing too much reading and that will rot out your brains unless of course it is a good book and you get kind of mixed up with all them revelations and things and you get tired of figuring out almanacs and the book with a thousand drummer jokes in it don't sound so good in print as when a fellow tells them to you and I never was much of a one for novels. What I like is books about something you could maybe know about yourself and maybe some of them old time wonders of the world with explanations of how they was made but nobody that was on the spot took the trouble to explain a lot of them things which is why I'm setting down what the bar room was like so help me. Well in the next chapter I will describe it some more or future generation will have no notion of them without the constitution of the United States changes its mind and comes to its senses again. End of section 6 Recording by Don Johnson Redondo Beach California Section 7 of Old Soak and Hail and Farewell This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Larry Wilson The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess Chapter 7 An Argument with the Old Woman The Old Woman and me had quite an argument last Sunday said the Old Soak it ended up with her turning a saw-span full of hot peas unto my bald spot which ain't no way to treat garden-truck with the cost of things what they be but I won one of these here moral victories even if she did get the best of me and chased me out of the house we had for dinner on Sunday it looked like mince-pie to me when she said it on the table and I says to her why don't she make some rhubarb pie or apple pie or something for this is a hell of a time of year to be having mince-pie and mince-pie ain't no good anyhow unless you put a shot of brandy or hard cider into it she knows I ought to be careful what I put into my stomach which is all to the bad since I kind of drink any more and I told her so well then said she this ain't mince-pie this is raisin pie raisin pie I says and I was shocked and scandalized raisin pie good lord woman are you crazy you don't mean to say you've went and took hundreds and hundreds of good raisins and went and wasted them that away by putting them in a pie it's the most extravagant thing I ever heard tell on ain't you got sense enough to know that in these days raisins ain't something you eat well what are they then she says raisins I told her is something you make hooch out of and you know I'm reduced to making my own stuff these days and yet here you be putting at least a quart of good raisins into a goss darn pie well one word led to another and as I said she hit me with the peas but I got away with that pie I won the moral victory I got that pie for mitten now in the bottom of a cask full of grape and berry juice and other truck I picked up here and there no sir there ain't going to be no raisins wasted around my house by each and of them in this here time of need hold soak with silent a moment and then he said the installment of my diarrhea booze takes up that very point of quarrelin with the old woman into section seven section number eight of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the old soak and hail and farewell Marcus chapter number eight the old soak's history more evils of prohibition well another kick I got on the abolition of the bar room is the fact that you got to stay around home so much and that naturally leads to having a row with your wife when there was bar rooms my wife used to join me every time I come home anyways lit up and I just let her join me and there wasn't any row for I figured better let her get away with it who knows maybe she thinks she is right about it but now I stick around home a good deal of the time and it leads to words well she says to me why don't you go and get a job of work of some kind well I tell her mind your own business I always been a good provider ain't I you have got five or six children working for you ain't you and a man that provides his wife five or six children to work for her is not going to listen to no back talk well she says you ought to be ashamed to loaf around home all the time well I says I'm thinking up a big business deal but that's the way with women they never understand they got to keep their mouth shut and give a man peace and quiet to do his thinking in so he can make them a good living all they think about his new fangled ways to spend the money after he has slaved himself half making it well she says I ain't seen you slaving any lately well I tells her I done all my hard slaving when I was young and I got a little money coming in right along from them two houses I own and I ain't got to work myself into the grave for no extravagant woman and me with a heart palpitation you can hear half a mile on a clear day well she says what rent money then two houses brings in don't the booze you drink well I says prohibitionist done that to me you went and made it plum impossible to get good liquor for any reasonable price that their rent money used to pay for three times the booze I drink well she says you ought to get a job if I was to tie myself down to a job I tells her what chance would I have to trade and dicker around and make little turnovers little own thinking up this big business deal I am working on you are a liar she said and if I'd known where your whiskey was hit I'd bust every bottle and what kind of business deal are you thinking of it is an invention I says to her and you mind your own business just because I have stood for you interrupting me for 40 years it's no son I'm going to stand for it 40 years more you can quit anytime she says in good written the children will keep me there will be one less to cook for besides being ashamed of you before all my friends and the nice people the children know well I said here I set turning over the leaves of the bible and you attacked me that way and me trying to think up a business deal to buy you an automobile and the palpitation in my heart that bad it shakes the chair I am setting in and if a man with one foot in the grave can't get any peace and quiet to read his bible in his own home and he's going to cash in and I will say that prohibition has brought this country to a pretty pass well she says what is that palpitation from all the liquor you drink it is from my constitution I says as the doctor will tell you if it hadn't been for a little might a stimulant now and then I would have cashed in long ago and you would now have the life insurance money well she says what kind of invention is this you claim you are thinking up all the time yes I says I would see myself telling you wouldn't I and you blabbing it the next time a lot of them church women meets at her house and some old church deacon getting a hold of it and getting rich off of it and me wander in the streets in destitution with the rain running down often my beard and the end of my nose because you and the children cast me into the street well she says where is that thousand dollars that my uncle Lemuel willed to me and I give it to you for one of them inventions nearly thirty years ago and never seen hide nor hair of it since then well I says that thousand dollars has gone and it went the same way as that money I loaned to your cousin Dan when he failed in business and would have starved to death him and his family if I hadn't come across with a cash that is where that thousand dollars is the way it goes until I get tired of trying to make her see any sense and sneak out to where my stuff is and fill me a pipe bottle for my hip pocket and go and find a friend somewhere and in just that way prohibition is breaking up millions and millions of homes every day and a section number eight section nine of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Matthew D. Robinson the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter nine preparing for Christmas Christmas said the old soak will soon be here but me I ain't going to look at it I ain't got the heart to face it I'm going to crawl off and make arrangements to go to sleep on the 23rd of December and not wake up until the 2nd of January then that is in favor of a denaturized Christmas won't be in a fear with by me I got no grudge against them but I won't intrude any on them either they can pass through the holidays in an orgy of sobriety and I'll be all alone in my own little room with my memories and a case of bourbon to bear me up I never could look on Christmas with the naked eye it makes me so darn sad Christmas does there's the kids I used to give them presents and my tendency was to weep as I give them poor little rascals I said to myself they think life is going to be just one Christmas tree after another but it ain't and then I think of all the Christmas's past I had spent with good friends and how they was all gone or on their way and I think of all the poor folks on Christmas and how the efforts made for them at that season was only a drop in the bucket to what they'd need the year around and along about December 23rd I always got so downhearted and sentimental and discouraged about the whole darn universe I nearly died with melancholy in years past the remedy was at hand a few drinks and I could look even Christmas in the face a few more and I'd stand under the mistletoe and sing God rest ye merry gentlemen and by the night of Christmas day I had kidded myself into thinking I liked it and wanted to keep it up for a week but this Christmas there ain't going to be any general iniquity used to season the grand religious festival with except among a few of us old soaks that has it laid away I ain't got the heart to look on all the melancholy critters that will be remembering the drinks they had last year and I ain't going to trot my own feelings out and make them public neither no sir me I'm going to hibernate like a bear that goes to sleep with his thumb in his mouth only it won't be a thumb I have in my mouth my house will be full of children and grandchildren and there will be a parcel of my wife's relations that has always boosted for prohibition but any of them ain't going to see the old man I won't mingle in any of them debilitated festivities I ain't any old Scrooge but I respect the memory of the old time Christmas and I'm going to have mine all by myself the melancholy part of it that comes first and the cure for the melancholy this country ain't worthy to share in my kind of a Christmas and I ain't so much as going to stick my head out of the window and let it smell my breath till after the holidays is over I got presents for all of them but none of them is to be allowed to open the old man's door and poke any presents into his room for him they ain't worthy to give me presents the people in general in this country ain't I won't take none from them they might have got together and stopped this prohibition thing before it got such a start but they didn't have the gumption I've succeeded I have and if any of my wife's prohibition relations come sniffing and smelling around my door where I've locked myself in I'll put a bullet through the door you hear me and I'll know who's sniffing too for I can tell a prohibitionist sniff as far as I can hear it I got a bar of my own well fixed up in my bedroom and there's going to be a hot water kettle nearby and a bullet this here Tom and Jerry setting onto it his biggest life and every time I wake up I'll crawl out of bed and say to myself just one more well now myself will say to me just one I really had an order to have that one I've had so many but just one goes and then we'll mix it right solemn and pour in the hot water standing there in front of the bar with our foot onto the railing me and myself together and myself will say to me well old scout you better have another before you go it's getting right like holiday weather outside I hadn't really ordered I will say to myself again but it's a long time the next holidays ain't it old scout and here's all the apartment and says at the season to you and may it sing through your digestive ornaments like a Christmas carol another one Ed and then I'll skip around behind the bar and play I was Ed the bartender and say are they too sweet for you sir and then I'll play I was myself again and say no they ain't Ed they're just right here's that fella down by the end bar Ed to join us I know him but I forget his name and then I'll play I was the fella and say I had an order have another but I will for it's always fair weather when good fellows gets together and then me and myself and that other fella will have three more because each one of us wants to buy one and then Ed the bartender will say to have one on the house and then I'll go to sleep again and hibernate some more and don't you call me out at that their room till along about noon on the second day of January I'll be alone in there with my joy and my grief and all them memories end of section nine section 10 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Brandon the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter 10 continuing the history the old soak fears for the growing children another thing wrong with prohibition that will one day make them sorry they passed that commandment onto the constitution is the ways will bring liquor in front of the growing children and if the children learns to drink it too young what will become of this country I would like to know when the next war comes along I guess they didn't think of that all these here wise Johnny's when they passed that law when you used to get all wanted in a bar room you went there for it and the children didn't see you and they couldn't go into them places and it wasn't sticking around under the children's noses at home all the time making them ask Pa what do you need with so much of that medicine and can I have some Pa but now you have it at home and it is sticking under their noses all the time and the chances are millions and millions of children will learn to drink too soon just because it is sticking under their noses all the time and that is what prohibition is doing for this country for everyone knows if they drink it too soon it will stunt their growths it is a great responsibility to bring up children right and God fearing and be sure they say they're lay me down like the good book says they should and what I want to know is why this government doesn't help the parents and fathers with all them responsibilities instead of being a stumbling block in their way and putting liquor in the home where the growing children will smell it all the time and if they smell it they will want some of it of course a young feller has got to learn to drink some time there is such a thing as learning too young and it stunts their growth and the good book says keep it out of the mouths of babes and sucklings maybe a little beer is all right if a baby is puny to fatten him up but I never give my children any hard liquor till they had the growth and I got no use for a government that turns in and puts liquor in the home to make drunkards out of the little innocent children maybe if a child has got a cold a little whiskey is good for him and what is left in the bottom of the glass when their dad is done with it if they put some sugar and water in it and play they are like paw won't hurt none of them any and will help make them so they can hold their share when they get grown up but that is different from forcing it down their poor little innocent throats all the time and every day which is what that prohibition commandment amounts to I note a child once in a family where they thought it was smart to let him have some hard liquor and he grew up with goggle eyes and all rickety from it and took to smoking these here cheap cigarettes and it was a shame as any person with any heart at all would have said and does this government want a future generation of posterity to grow up goggle, eyed and rickety like that by forcing liquor into the home and where will they get their strong soldiers from in the next war I will say they got no conscience to do a thing like that to the whole parcel of children waiting to grow up and go to be soldiers it is enough to make any honest man stop and think at his heart when he thinks of all them millions and millions of innocent children and the way they are being ruined with liquor in the home and maybe helping their daddies make it with yeast and raisins and things and corn meal in the cellar I teached my boys to drink in the bar room just as fast as they growed up and teach them to tell good liquor from bad liquor and not to mix their drinks and not to go in for fancy drinks and to drink along with me for a comfort for my old age and a father had ought to make chums of his boys like that and give them the right example and they stay close to him and he knows what they are thinking about and can give them good advice and my boys has been a comfort to me my boys has all grown up but what worries me is the millions and millions of little children that is going to learn to drink too young well in my next chapter I promise to get down to brass tax and tell just exactly what those bar rooms was like that has been vanished End of Chapter 10 Recording by John Brandon For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by John Brandon No sir, said the old soak I ain't got so darned much left it may get me through a year and it may run me only about ten months but I don't want so much as I used to for some reason in course no gentleman of the old school figures on less than a quarter day but there has been times when I exceeded that their limit looking back on them times I don't know whether to be glad or sorry it's a satisfaction to remember that I had the liquor but it's a grief to know that I won't never have the same liquor again but at a quarter day if I'm careful and don't give any parties to new acquaintances that is took sudden with a love and admiration for me I'll toddle along for ten or twelve months yet and by that time something or other will happen in my favor you see if it doesn't either the country will backslide into iniquity again in spots or else somebody will die and leave me an island down near Cuba old jade potter my friend out of long island I told you of will get his smuggling works started into operation fact is old jade is already set and the smuggling works is ready to operate right now only there don't seem to be nothing to smuggle jade says he's got one of these here gasoline boats and he goes out and makes signals to the ocean liners to and from Europe but they ain't onto jade signals I tell him he's got to make arrangements in advance with some of them transatlantic bartenders for they don't know what he's driving at well jade says you'd think they could tell by my looks I'm thirsty wouldn't you jade he's a romantic and optimistic but them notions of his is all right if they was only organized he paused a while refreshed himself from his pocket flask and then took up another line of inquiry what I would like to know he said is what mean folks is going to blame their meanness onto now that booze is gone it used to be a good excuse for a lot of people that wasn't worth nothing and noted an acted ornery booze was the answer everybody said if they did anything they hadn't order people said it was all right except when they had a drink or two but a drink or two changed their entire disposition and the drink order be blamed not them my own observation and belief leads me to remark that them kind of folks was less ornery and mean when they had booze then when they didn't have it well I notice in myself a kind of a habit growing up to blame everything onto prohibition just as prohibitionists used to blame everything onto booze I want to be fair to the drys and I will say that neither prohibition nor booze has much to do with making a mean man mean I want to be fair to the drys so as to show them up they ain't fair to me and when I'm fair to them it shows how superior I be end of section 11 recording by John Brandon section 12 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Matthew D. Robinson the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter 12 more of the history as it used to be of a morning well I promised I would tell just what those vanished bar rooms was like and I will tell the truth so help me one thing that I can't get used to going without is that long brass railing where you would rest your feet and I have got one of them fixed up in my own bedroom now so when I get tired setting down I can go and stand up and rest my feet one at a time well you would come in in the morning and you would say Ed, I ain't feeling so good this morning I wonder what could the matter be Ed says, though he has got a pretty good idea of what it could be all the time but he's too kindhearted to let on I don't know, you says to Ed I guess I am smoking too much lately when you left here last night, Ed says you seem to be feeling alright maybe what you got is a little touch at this here influenza it ain't influenza Ed, you says to him it is them heavy cigars we was all smoking in here last night I swallowed too much of that smoke Ed and I got a headache this morning and my stomach feels kind of like it was a democratic stomach all surrounded by republican voters and a lot of that tobacco must have got into my eyes I feel so rotten this morning that when my wife said are you going downtown without your breakfast I just said to her hell and walked out to dodge a row because I could see she was bad temper this morning what would you say to a little absinthe, says Ed sympathetic and helpful a cocktail of frappy no, says you if you was to say what I used to say I leave that there stuffed these here young cigarette smoking squirts which it always tasted like paragoric to me yes sir, Ed says it is one of them foreign things and how about a milk punch it is sometimes soothing when a person is smoked too much no, Ed you says a milk punch is too much like vitals and I can't stand the idea of vitals yes sir, Ed used to say you are right sir how about a gin fizz a gin fizz will bring back your stomach to life right gradual sir and not with a shock like being raised from the dead Ed you says to him or at least ways I always used to say a silver fizz is too gentle and one of them golden fizz with the yellow of an egg in it has got the same objections as a milk punch it is too much like vitals yes sir Ed says I think you are right about vitals I can understand how you feel about not wanting vitals in the early part of the day and that makes you love Ed for you meet a lot of people who can't understand that there ain't no sympathy and understanding left in the world since bartenders was abolished how about an old fashioned whiskey cocktail says Ed you feel he is getting nearer to it and you tell him so but it don't seem just like the right thing yet and then Ed sees you ain't never going to be satisfied with anything till after it is into you and he takes the matter into his own hands I know what is the matter with you he says and what you want and he mixes you up a whiskey sour and you get a little cross and say it helped some but there was too much sugar in it and not to put so much sugar in the next one and by the time you drink the third one somewhere away down deep inside of you there is a warm spot wakes up and kind of smiles and that is your soul has waked up and you sort of wish you hadn't been so mean with your wife when you left home and you look around and see a friend and have one with them and your soul says to you away down deep inside of you for all you know about them old bible stories they may be true after all and maybe there is a god and kind of feel glad there may be one and if your friend says let's go and have some breakfast you are surprised to find out you could eat an egg if it ain't too soft or ain't too done well I promised so help me I would tell the truth about them bar rooms that is perished away and the truth I will tell and the truth with me used to be that more than likely it wasn't really cigars that used to get me feeling that way in the mornings and I will take up a different part of the subject in my next chapter end of section 12 chapter 13 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Brandon the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter 13 peace and contentment prohibition said the old soak is doing more harm than you can see with the naked eye formerly when a man called up and told his wife that he was detained at his office by an unexpected caller on business just as he was starting home his wife knew he had stopped to take three or four balls with the boys on the corner and thought very little about it now she wonders if that unexpected caller could have been a lady when a man came home late with the smell of liquor on his breath he knew he was in bad but he knew just how bad in he was now everything is uncertainty and gas work everywhere and until X is cracking under strains on all sides it must have been the same way back in the historic days of iniquity and antiquity when the Roman Empire switched all of a sudden from being heathen to being Christian everybody had to be good all of a sudden and only a few had learned how and everybody that hadn't quite succeeded in turning Christian went around for a while wondering if everybody else was as gosh darned Christian as they let on to be I know a lot of people now that says they're on the wagon but I'd hate to go so sound asleep in a streetcar that I wouldn't wake up if they tried to pull my flask out of my pocket I don't struggle none to be good myself I'm a dypsomaniac and I know it and I'm content it to be that way years ago I used to struggle and think maybe I would quit drinking sometime and it kept me unhappy but as soon as they came right out and acknowledged booze as my boss and master and set him up and crowned him king a great peace fell upon me and I ceased to struggle and I've been happy and contented and full of love for my fellow men ever since there ain't nothing like finding out which gang you belong to and sticking to your own crowd consistent if I had only been brought up to be a drunkard when I was young I would have settled into it natural and been saved a lot of worry and struggle and uncertainty but there was years when I fit against it from time to time and it kept me unsettled and discontented and I wasted a lot of good time trying to keep sober but I might have been a drunk and cheerful radiating joy and happiness into the world and being of some use to my fellow men but I suppose everybody thinks if they had their life to live over again and the main thing is to reach peace and contentment toward the end as I have reached it End of Chapter 13 Recording by John Brandon Section 14 of The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Matthew D. Robinson The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquis Chapter 14 Continuing the History of the Rum Demon Unfermented Grape Juice Well as I said in my last chapter it is time for me to get down to brass tacks and describe just what those bar rooms that has been vanished was like so that future generations of posterity will know what they missed and to tell the truth in all particulars so help me Some of them was that arted up with hand paintings that if you had all them paintings in your home would feel proud of yourself like Solomon and all his glory and would feel like you was living in the midst of a high art museum and the shining brass cuspidors to spit in and the brass rail and all them shiny glasses and bottles and mirrors made up a scene of grandeur and glory like the Good Book mentions and you would think you was King Pharaoh of Egypt if you lived in the midst of all that or Job and all his riches before the itch broke out on him well speaking of the Good Book my wife has always been more or less of a prohibitionist in order to show me that she is independent of me and one day one of these here church friends of hers tries to tell me all the liquor that was drink in the bible wasn't nothing but unfermented grape juice Yes it was I said don't you believe it was like hell it was you go and get your testament and see where King Solomon talks about the stuff that makes the heart marry and then go and swill yourself with grape juice and see if you could get the way he was when he wrote eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die and how about the time them two women came to him with that one child and both claimed that it was his turn and he says to the officer on duty let me see that their sword of yarn for a minute all darned soon see who this kid belongs to and verily the officer drawed his sword and the king he heaved it up and was about to cut the kid in two when one of the women says to stop unhand him king and not do the rash act it is the other woman's you lamb and let her have it it being her own all the time and her one you lamb and her preferring to see the other woman grab it often have half of it well says the king half a loaf is better than no bread but with infants it is different take the child it is yours woman and go and sin no more well now I ask you was king saw them and drinking the unfermented juice of the grape when he got that their hunch or was he not I will say he was not them radical and righteous ideas never come to a man when he is cold sober he has got to have a shot of something moving around under his belt before he gets that away and how about them Bible hangovers I said did this here church person man and boy I been a student of the Bible from cover to cover for a good many years now and I never seen a book with more evidence of hangovers and cats and jammers into it how about that their book that says vanity vanity all is vanity well I ask you did you ever get that way in the morning after you had spent the night before drinking the unfermented juice of the grape that their book of exclusia sticks is just one long howl from the next morning head things seem right says old exclusia stick and they look right but if you bite into them they don't taste right or words to that effect and you stick around a while says old man exclusia stick darn soon see they nothing right nowhere and never will be again more over says he I was wrong when I used to think things was right there ain't never anything anywhere been all right and I was all wrong when I was a young fella and used to think things was right and the wrongest thing about the whole business is the darn fools like I used to be who go around saying things is all right and the sum and substance of everything is vanity says he vanity vanity all is vanity you could tell some folks that their old exclusia stick was writing as the result of unfermented grape juice but a man with any experience of his own knows a good deal better and what kind of a taste was in his mouth you can't tell an old bible reader like me anything about this unfermented stuff the trouble with these ear church people is that too many of them ain't never read the bible or if they did read it they read it with the idea that it was saying something else like they wanted it to say I always stuck to the bible in spite of the church folks and I always will for it has got some kick into it there is three things in the world I always stick to the bible and hard liquor and calamel for they has got the kick to them you can have all your light wines and unfermented stuff and all your pretty new thought religions and all your new fangled medicines you want to but for me I will stick to the old testament and corn whiskey and calamel like my forefathers done before me you can't pull any of that unfermented stuff on me and get away with it end of section 14 section 15 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by John Brandon the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter 15 political talk the old soak came in to see us during the recent presidential campaign what I expected has come to past he said sorrowfully this here cocks that everybody hoped was a wet prohibitionist ain't that at all he ain't nothing but a dry liquor man I've been a Republican ever since the days of Abraham Lincoln but I had an idea this year I was going to have her to leave the old party flat on account of rumors I hearing that this here cocks was coming out for liquor my conscience is Republican but my religion is liquor and I would have voted again any conscience for the sake of my religion but I ain't going to be compelled for to make that sacrifice I'd rather vote for an out and out prohibitionist than one of these here fellers that gets the word passed private to the wets that they'll be a stick in the lemonade and gets the word passed private to the dries but what he means is nothing but a stick of peppermint candy they ain't no hope for liquor in the public life no more than a question for the home as for as my own private stock is concerned it mostly ain't but I got a grand idea working up my old woman's got a niece who's come to live with us and I'm trying to marry that there gal to a revenue agent I see by the papers they're always tracking down a couple of thousand gallons somewhere's a rather and I don't hear no glass crashing nowhere's to indicate where them bottles is being busted I once somebody in the family that will take me along on some of these here raids I read about End of Chapter 15 Recording by John Brandon Section 16 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by April 6,090 California, United States of America the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis the history continued prohibition and winter weather well when I seen all them men shoveling snow and ice in the streets and no place to go for a drink and maybe one of them spring thaws coming along soon now which they're always full of these here log grip germs I says to myself then prohibitionist think they have done something pretty smart but they've got another think coming to them I never been much of a hand to kick against the weather as a fact I used to like all kinds of weather as it come along you went into a place and you said to Ed it looks like one of them cold rains is going to start up pretty soon Ed yes sir Ed says it is pretty raw the wind is roaring what will you have well I used to say I was wondering about a little scotch with boiling water into it and a lump of butter and a lump of sugar into it I know the fellow used to treat himself that way one time no sir says Ed I wouldn't advise anything like that sir it will get you sweating inside of you all around your stomach and lungs and then you will go out and swallow some cold damp air and take one of them inside cold sir and it may run into pneumonia or this here pelicanitis well Ed I don't want to catch none of them germs you would say to him and how about some rock and rye you better stick to straight rye and leave out the rock a little bit ago you were drinking straight rye and you don't want to be mixing them too much says Ed and no sooner said than done or maybe it was summertime and a hot day and you would say to Ed I wonder how many people is getting sun-struck today Ed a good many says Ed they drink too much cold water and it gets to them I'm glad I don't have to go out into the awful heat you would say the main thing is to keep your pores open says Ed if you stop the perspiration that means a sun stroke the main thing is to encourage the perspiration to sweat itself out of you I think you're right Ed you says and I was wondering about some beer no sir not for you says Ed I wouldn't advise no beer you put these here temperance drinks like beer and sasparilla into your stomach sir and it takes up a lot of room you will wish you had later in the day you would say beer wouldn't do no harm sir but I should say sir that it was the wrong thing for you one of them long silver fizzes with ice shook up into it would sound nice to my ears as it went down my oozlegoozle you would say to Ed and he is kind of lazy with the heat and he don't want to shake it up so he says to you on a hot day like this you are taking chances with your life every time you put ice drinks into you and he says what's the matter with that ride you've been drinking all the early part of the day that is the best thing to keep perspiration coming out of your sweat pours well no sooner said than done the number of times in old fashioned bartenders have saved my life summer and winter with good advice is as too numerous to mention as it is the stars in the sky and their name in legend as the good book says in them days there was a bar room on every corner and sometimes four bar rooms on every four corners I never cared about the weather at all for I knowed no matter what the weather was I could keep my health safe if you was to look out the bar room window and see a sudden change in the weather you could make a sudden change and switch to some other kind of drink and keep yourself protected from them sudden changes but in these days when a sudden change in the weather is what protection have you got I would like to know you are running the risks of them sudden changes all the time day and night and no chance to change your drink to meet them with four you are lucky if you have one kind of liquor let alone all the different kinds of ingredients you use to ornament your digestion with nowadays when the weather ain't just right I have to stay home in my own room at the top of the house where I got that little bar rigged up where I wait on myself and staying to home all the time ain't any too good for me it don't give me a chance to get any outdoor exercise staying at home don't and a man needs outdoor exercise if he is going to keep his health that is another thing prohibition has done to me it has took away all my chance for outdoor exercise and then prohibitionists will be satisfied when they got everybody's health broke down on account of them sudden changes in the weather and nobody getting any outdoor exercise any more end of section 16 section 17 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information not a volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquess chapter 17 the old soak finds a way yes sir yes sir said the old soak with a happy smile on his face I done found out the way to beat the game ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies as to how I done it see this bottle here do you Kentucky Bourbon and nothing else bottled in bond and there's plenty more where that comes from ask me no questions and I'll enrich you with no misinformation you see that their little car parked out there by the curb stone do you well sir that their car is my car and under the back seat of it is 12 quarts of this here stuff and it ain't home brewed neither it's some of the best liquor you ever throwed your lips over how do I do it don't ply me with no questions and I'll bring you no false witnesses and notice these here new clothes of mine well sir that their suits the bargain it only cost me two cases of rye I got three new suits like that to home and I'm figuring on buying one of these here low neck and short sleeve dress suits and I'll give you no back talk if you was to come out to the house I'd introduce you to quite a lot of good liquor can't drink no more huh ain't you got a friend you could bring I'd like to have you meet my son-in-law yes sir yes sir daughter was married two months ago I'd like to have you meet my son-in-law daughter was married two months ago the youngest one her and her husband is making their home with us a temporary I'm trying to persuade him to stop to our house permanent yes sir my son-in-law he is one of these here revenuers well so long I gotta go see an old friend of mine that lives up to the Bronx this afternoon he ain't had a real drink for now until three months he tells me I'm heading a rescue party into them their regions yes sir yes sir I figure my daughter married well bring up your kids in the way they should go like the good book says and providence will do the rest Henry that's my son-in-law is figuring maybe he can get my son Jim made a revenue or two ask me no questions and I'll give you no family secrets end of section 17 section 18 of the old soak and heal and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information nor to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquess chapter 18 the history continued the bar room's good influence another thing my miss in regard to all them vanished bar rooms being closed up is kind feeling about respect to the old especially to parents and them that has departed where is the younger generations of posterity going to learn how to be kind hearted about home and mother now that the bar rooms is all closed up I would like to know there used to be that a lot of fellows would get all tanked up of an afternoon or evening and in the right sort of place they would get to singing songs all them songs about home and mother and to treat her right now that her hair is turned gray I never was much of one to sing myself unless I had a few drinks in to me but whether I helped sing them or not all them songs would make a better man of me you stand up to a bar or sit down at a table and listen to them songs for two or three hours and if you are any kind of man at all you will wish you had always done sing and now that all them songs about home and mother has been took away from me I ain't the man I used to be at all I feel myself going downhill because my softer emotions and feelings ain't never stirred up by nothing anymore well this 18th commandment is going to make a heart hearted country out of this here country nobody is never going to think as much of home and mother as they do and I guess them prohibitionist won't feel so smart when they see all them old ladies with gray hair flung out onto the street in the rainy weather just because nobody would pay the mortgage off lots of times when I was a young fella after hearing them songs for a while I would say to myself I will set right down and write a letter to my mother I ain't wrote her for five or six months and when I got older after getting lost on I used to say to myself some of these days I will have to make a visit to the old home place and take a look around there but all them softer feelings has been took away from me now and what I would like to know is how is the younger generation going to grow up hard hearted that is how some of these here fine days I may be cast out into the street myself with the raindrops dripping down often my hat brim into my eyebrows just because nobody won't pay a mortgage and it has got to be a hard hearted country I hope none of them their smart alec pro-hibs will be flung out onto the street that way because they got no friends would pay off their mortgages and they would just naturally be destituted to death I ain't hard hearted like they be and I hope that don't happen to none of them but if it ever did they would find out a few things in my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and give a true description of them bar rooms that has perished off the face of the earth end of section 18 section 19 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information nor to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquess chapter 19 a house divided the old soak has been looking rather well for some time he seems prosperous and happy for the most part and contented with the quantity and quality which he has been getting but yesterday he dropped in to see us with just the slightest shade of gloom on his features we asked him about it it's that there son of mine he says he's too young to know enough to let well enough alone like the good books has to do there's a lot of these young fellas you can't learn nothing to this year a son in law of mine I've been telling you about that is a revenuer got my son made into a revenuer too and it ain't long before my son gets just as good an automobile as the one my son in law has been driving and joy out our house has been unconcerned with everyone except the old woman and she's been praying again the rest of the family but this year son of mine he gets too much hooch under his belt one day and he gets into this brand new automobile of hison and he starts on to one of these year raids which would have been all right being as it's what a revenuer is for if he had only used a little bit of judgment but the young has got a lot to learn and babes and striplands the good book says just naturally has their damn fool streets this year raid my son goes on to turns out all wrong for whilst he is pinching who does he pinch in the gang of wicked sinners but that their son in law of mine the revenuer has got him his job said son in law being off duty and pickled himself at the time so this year son in law of mine he might and I loses of his job as a revenuer being took up in one of the raids he was legally supposed to be starting himself and they was quite a fuss about it so I understand and the thing was finally settled with the compromise it wasn't my son in law lost his job but they compromised it and fired my son out in his job but now my son he has went and got sore at my son in law and he says unless he gets his job back as a revenuer he will tell all he knows so my house is a house that is sided against itself like the good book says I remember the family has took sides one way or the other tricks my son and my son in law and the old woman is again both on him and again me too a praying and a praying and a praying you went and prayed for years and years so as to get prohibition I tells her and now you got it you got more on it than any woman I knows for it comes right into your own home now you got it you ain't satisfied with it there you be on to your narrow bones praying again the revenuers I suppose I was too highfalutin and ambitious wanting to keep two mems of my family into the revenuer job and as long as my son in law stays into office and continues to make his home with me I won't have no care coming but we'll take my hooch and thankfulness and humility like eating drinking and being merry this year a little cloud of gloom what you notice is due to the old woman's prayers I can't help but feel she is going direct against Scribner and her husband's best interest into section 19 section 20 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibraVox recording all LibraVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org recording by April 6090 California United States of America the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter 20 continuing the history of the rum demon the bar room and manners another thing about those bar rooms that has been vanished forever is the fact that most of them was right polite sort of places if a fellow edged up to the bar and knocked over your glass of whiskey or something like that he would say oh excuse me stranger and you would say sure but look where in hell you are going to after this sure he would say no offense meant no offense taken you would say to him have one with me he would say no sooner said than done but nowadays all you see in here is bad manners and impoliteness with people hustling and bumping into each other on the subways and stepping on each other and women and children amongst them and nobody ever begging anybody's pardon and hard feelings everywhere the trouble is everybody is sore when wanting a drink all the time and there is no place where the younger generation is going to learn good manners now that the bar rooms is gone is the young fellows just growing up to manhood going to do for their manners now that the bar rooms is closed is what I want to know it used to be you would get on to a subway train and there would be two or three women standing up and you would be setting down and there would be three or four drinks under your belt and you would be feeling good and you would say to yourself am I a gentleman or ain't I a gentleman you're deemed right I'm a gentleman you don't have to relate to yourself here lady you sit down and don't let any of these here bums roust you out of that seat if any of these here bums tries to roust you out of that seat I will put a tin here on to them that's the kind of a gentleman I am lady they would have a hell of a time lady getting your seat away from you with me here and she seemed you was a gentleman and she smiled at you and you hung on to a strap and felt good But nowadays there ain't no manners, with no place to get a drink or anything. You are setting in the subway, and a lady comes in and has nowhere to set. And you say to yourself, let some of these other guys get up and give her a seat. And you think awhile, and you say to yourself, I'll bet she is a prohibitionist anyhow. Let her stand up. She has got to learn you can't have any manners with the bar rooms all closed and everything. Well, that's another thing closing the bar room has done. It has took away all the manners this town ever had. In my next chapter I will get down to brass tacks and tell just what those bar rooms was like for the benefit of future posterity that has never seen one. This recording is in the public domain. Section 21 of The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Michelle Frye, Battenridge, Louisiana. The Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess. Chapter 21. Sympathy Wanted Yes, said the Old Soak, I get plenty of hooch nowadays. My son is back in the revenue business and my son-in-law is with it too. I get plenty of whiskey. I've got some into me and I've got some on my hip and I know where I'm going to get some more when that's gone. And he sighed. Why so gloomy then, we asked. You should be radiating a false staffee in joviality. You should be as merry as the merry-mary villagers in an opera on the Duke's birthday. But on the contrary, you shake from out your condor wings an utterable woe, as E.A. Poe has it. Wherefore? I miss, he said, the next morning's empathy, the next morning's ministrations. Anyone can get drunk under the auspices of prohibition, but it takes the right kind of barkeep for to get you sober again and to make you like it. Where is the next morning barkeep? He ain't. He was wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove, like the good book says. He knowed right off what held you at eleven o'clock on a cloudy morning and what was good for it. A little of this, one out of the long green bottle and a little of that and some ice tinkle and in it and the white of an egg maybe. And oh, you know, one of them and there was Sav on the sore spot of your soul. Two of them and you began to forgive yourself. Three of them and you could hear about breakfast. You could look an egg in the eye. And he never asked no question about your past, that barkeep didn't. He didn't need to. He knowed. He's seen last night's history in this morning's footnote. He was kind. Feel a little better now, sir, he'd ask. Two or three of them is enough, sir, if you ask me. Get your breakfast now, sir, and you'll be quite okay. Yes, sir, I learned to mix them in New Orleans. You talked to him and he let you. He was like a mother's knee to a three-year-old that bumped its head the old-fashioned barkeep was. But now he ain't. Now when you get up, gloom stands on one side of you and conscience on the other and remorse is feeding lines of both of them. Well says gloom. This is a fine, cheerful morning. This is about as full of sunshine as the insides of the whale that drank Jonah. It is says remorse. And then some conscience in me feels so bad about it that we're going to jump off the dock together. I ain't neither says conscience. I'm going to save myself for the worst. The worst is yet to come. I want to be here when it comes. I ain't going to be here when it comes says gloom. I'm going over to the aquarium and rent myself out for a fish. Just then went on the old soak. A strange party sticks his head in the door and says, never again. Who be you says gloom. I'm repentant says the Batinsky and I calls on you guys to mend your ways. And gloom, he looks at the hard liquor left in the bottom of the bottle and at the sky and at the door of the closed-up bar room across the street and he says, it can't be done without some uplift. I need soothing words and an educated hand. We got what's coming to us says remorse and there's more of it coming says conscience. Better quit says repentance. I ain't going to quit says gloom without the right kind of drink to quit on. I ain't never yet quit without the right kind of drink to quit on and I'm not going to start any innovations on a rotten day like this. Well, went on the old soak. You sit on the edge of your bed and you listen to these year guys talking and you think how right all of them is and you wonder whether it's any use getting up and you think of all the bar keeps you used to know and after a while you suck an orange and think of one of them long silver fizzes with frost on the glass and charity and loving kindness in its heart like Ed used to shake up. You think of it so hard you well and I taste it and then the mirage fades away and you ain't nothing but a camel in the desert again with a humpback taste in your mouth. Yes sir said the old soak I can get all the booze I want but I can't get sympathy but a man needs in the morning there's a kind heart for it to comfort him and a strong arm to lean on anybody can give me good advice but it don't soothe me any what I want is a quick friend in a white apron wise as a bishop and gentle as a nurse what I want is the owls and eds I used to know but they've went forever I won't meet them in hell because they're too kind hearted to go there and I won't meet them in heaven because I won't go there myself I reckon concluded the old soak I'll have to go to England and the section 21 sympathy wanted section 22 of the old soak and hail and farewell this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this recording by Michelle Fry Battenridge, Louisiana in September 2019 the old soak and hail and farewell by Don Marquis chapter 22 the history of the Rome demon concluded prohibition is making a free thinker of the old soak another thing that going without bar rooms is doing for this country is it is destroying home life it is pretty hard to get along with your wife after you've been married to her for 20 or 30 years and kind of settle down and realize you're going to be married to her as long as she lives for better or for worse unless something happens which it seldom does not that you don't kind of like her and you know she kind of likes you but the thing is that her and you is apt to treat each other mean now and then because you get to thinking what a good time you could have if you didn't have to turn in so much of your money to making a home run smooth and you know even if you do row with each other you will make up again and kind of looking forward to the rows because anyhow that is a change but sometimes you carry them rows too far and then you don't know how to get your home life running right again because she is always too stubborn to give in and you won't be the first one to give in because you know she is wrong but when there was liquor to be had in plenty it was easier to make up after one of them rows and home life went a long smoother you would get up in the morning and she would say to you would you have a boiled egg for breakfast or a fried and you would say hey Dee's what an idea can't you never think of anything but eggs for breakfast and she would say yesterday I didn't have eggs and you was sore because you wanted eggs you would say just because I wanted eggs yesterday is that any sign I want them every day of my life till death do us part I was only asking what you wanted she would say I will go where I can get what I want you would say I will eat my breakfast at a restaurant this morning and maybe I can keep them from shoving eggs in front of me when I don't ask for eggs the trouble with your stomach is not what you put into it in the morning she would say but what you put into it the night before the trouble with my stomach you would say is that I am worried to death and worked to death all the time trying to keep this house running and it gives me the dyspepsi it is the liquor gives you dyspepsi she would say if it wasn't for a little stimulant in my stomach like the good book says you tell her my dyspepsi wouldn't let me digest anything at all and I would starve to death and the mortgage on the house would be foreclosed and you would go to the old woman's home whose money pays the interest on the mortgage she would say whose you would say mine she would say you wouldn't have any money you tell her what your relations has borrowed of me well one word leads to another and you go off without any breakfast for you see her taking the Bible down to set and read it and when she sets and reads the Bible you know she's reading it against you and it gets you madder and madder and in the old days when there was bar rooms you would go into one still feeling mad and say Ed mix with one of the old fashioned whiskey cocktails don't put too much orange in that kind of damn garbage in it I want the kick no sooner said than done and after a couple of them you would say well after all the old woman means well I wonder if I didn't treat her a little mean this morning I would have called her up on the telephone and give her a jolly and then you would think of her relations that you hate and get mad at her again on account of always sticking up for them and say Ed that don't set so well let's try a whiskey sour and you would meet a friend and have another with him and pretty soon eat some breakfast and think how after all it was eggs you was eating for breakfast and they wasn't cooked no ways as good as the old woman would approach them for you on toast you hadn't been so darn mean to her and your friend would say his old woman blowed him up for coming home pickled and you would have another drink that was one thing your old woman never done to you my old woman has got some sense you would say to him she knows how a man feels about taking a drink and she never blows me up and you would sit and brag about your old woman and you had never had a crossword between you in 30 years and then he would begin to brag about his old woman too and pretty soon you would say to yourself you better go to the phone and call her up her mean streaks all right but who knows she may have been right this morning after all and you take another drink and get her on the telephone and give her a chance to say how sorry she was about the way she treated you that morning and maybe you go and pay an installment on a new carpet sweeper for her well it was that way in the old days lick her kept your home life running along okay you would get mad with your wife sorry for her and give her an excuse to make up with you again but now with no chance to get a drink when I'm away from home if I treat the old woman mean in the morning I don't give her a chance to get on my good side again and I can see sometimes that it is breaking her heart that's what prohibition is doing to this country it is breaking the women's hearts and it is breaking up the home life on every hand what is going to become of a country where all the home life is broke up and what is going to become of the children if there ain't any home life running along smooth anymore these prohibitionists that is so darn smart never thought of that I guess when they put that 18th commandment across onto us whenever I think of all them women's hearts that is breaking and all that home life that is going plum to the dogs all on account of the bar rooms being closed up it will now make the free thinker out of me I don't claim to be a churchman but I never was a free thinker before neither but all the sorrow that's going on in the world on account of them bar rooms being closed is making a free thinker of me End of Section 22 Section 23 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Section 23 A Last Drink to George McDaniel Hail Barleycorn they said you weren't nice salve you bum and veil hail farewell your feet the pro his say go down to hell you led men into poker fights and dice you filled the world with murder lust and lice you made a barfly of the howling swell you bought the blood that deep-dyed bend its cell you might lead one in time I fear to vice Old Blearide Mut beloved and accursed before you go a song for old sake, sake a song memorial to the days and nights when I companion with the dipsist snake and bared my throat unto his febrious bites to gain a greater thirst Section 23 this recording by Michelle Fry Baton Rouge, Louisiana in September 2019 Section 24 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Poem 2 in the Old Days to Paul Thompson liquor there is but oh the bar's gone the long brass rail above the sawdust floor the gay hot dog the gleaming cuspidore the bright brave nose that brave bright lights shone on the jock and barkeep Ed or Al or John the ribble just I loved the answering roar that jangled the glasses liquor there is but these delights are done in the Old Days when bubbles winked at me in the glad days when I was steeped in rum I played the Prosperote Fantasy I drank and bade my aerial fancies come but I have lost my ancient wizardry and my old self my lyric self is dumb End of Section 24 Recording by Anita Sloma Martinez Section 25 of the Old Soak and Hail and Farewell by Don Marquess this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Poem 3 a dipsy shanty to Ned Leamy oh heave the anchor heave fetch her up twist with the corkscrews Stuart lend a hand let her prance out to sea like a frolic-footed pup for the ship is full of liquor and to hell with the land ghosts from the ocean abysses clambering clambering come climb to our dexen roar broach us a punchin of rum we are scaly with salt and sand we've had nothing but water to swallow stave in a hugs head of rum let us roll in the scuppers and wallow heh splice the main brace oh she smells the gale the shipper walks the bridge with a bottle to his eye she rollocks with her boilers full of good bass ale by the timber peg of silver the seashell not go dry we have raxed them out of the deep they follow through shine and fog phantoms of ancient mariners lured by the reek of our grog Noah and Hawkins and kid up from the green abysses and there in a wine-stained galley the ghost of great Ulysses Eric the red in a whaleboat and with him cheek by Jowell silver begging a drain God blesses wicked soul oh how she snorts hey hear her snore the wind slaps her nostrils she hiccups for her breath steward a corkscrew you poor fish ashore in a ranzome you can choke to death with eyes of the darting witchfire like mist the poor ghost's come and an anguished wind from the mist bellows and wines for rum they have been thirsty so long let us be good fellows still and open a hundred casks and let them wallow and swill quick with a corkscrew oh damn the wheel the captain's in his hunk with a bottle to his eye stoking with scotch and lemon peel by Davy Jones' locker the sea shall not go dry end of section 25 recording by Anita Sloma Martinez