9/24/11 A SLIVER OF SLIVOVITZ

LIQUID FIRE

HERE''S A SLIVOVITZ TOAST TO ALL...

Saturday,  8:00 AM.  48 degrees, wind W, light.  The sky is still overcast but the barometer predicts partly cloudy weather.  Some sunshine would be nice.  The geese were flying again this morning, very high, obscured by the clouds, their incessant chatter muffled.  Can they see where they are going, or are they following the magnetic lines of the earth? A mystery, surely.
    The first day of fall opened with a another bit of mystery at Chateau Ode; the doorbell rang and when I went to open the door nobody was there, no car in the driveway, nothing. Even though the stores are full of pumpkins, goblins and ghosts, trick or treating is a long way off. Looking down, I saw a brown paper bag nestled against the door jam.  What could it be?
    It was… totally unexpected best wishes from a”loyal, faithful Bayfield Almanac reader…” anxious to keep me healthy and out of the hospital, with…Slivovitz, about which I wrote some time ago as a wonderful memory of Milwaukee and my Aunt Emmy, who as a proud Checkoslovak/American passed around the plum brandy at Christmas. To quote the note that accompanied the bottle, “It is entirely possible that a mere daily sliver of Slivovitz is an appropriate antidote and we are reasonably sure that your aunt …would have a nod of approval for this plum of a medication.”
    As I sipped the 80 proof  liquid fire I could again see Aunt Emmy, a smiling, tiny wisp of a woman with silver gray hair tightly  knotted in a bun, dressed in her lace fringed frock, bringing traditional Check and German dishes to the crowded holiday table. And passing the bottle of Slivovitz.
    So here’s a toast to her, and to all the good people of my Milwaukee melting pot past: Checks, Slovaks, Poles, Irish, Italians, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Greeks, Africans, Native Americans, Jews and many other ethnicities who lived together in relative harmony and enriched each others lives; and most especially to Einar, who must have gone to great trouble to procure the rather rare, imported libation. 
    The Slivovitz must be fine medicine, as a sliver of it did  make me feel very good indeed.  But Einar, from you I would have expected maybe Aquavit?