Beer Bottle Bonanza

My father was never much of a drinker. In fact, unless we had company coming we never usually even had alcohol in the house. But during the summertime when we would get word that the aunts, uncles, and grandparents were going to be making their annual pilgrimage down from Cohoes, NY to visit us, my father would go out to buy a case of beer.

Company would come, the beer would be consumed, and the case of empties would be brought downstairs. No one ever seemed to get around to taking them back from whence they came, and so over the years, one case at a time, they slowly piled up in the cellar.

It just so happened, during those years, that as the bottle collection grew, so, too, was I growing. Growing from infant to toddler, to young child, to a kid old enough to realize the value of an empty bottle.

Bottles were worth money. Take back a small bottle and they gave you two cents. Take back a large one and they gave you a nickel. Not a bad way to supplement an allowance, especially when back then the allowance in question amounted to 25-cents a week.

You could call me a lot of things back in the mad impetuous days of my youth. Things like stubborn, unpredictable, impossible, and precocious (my word here – I believe the term generally used was less flattering), to name just a few, but one thing you could never call me was slow. My mind was always working and there was always an adventure on the horizon.

I almost never went into our cellar. To be honest, the place gave me the creeps. Dark and spooky with a packed dirt floor and cobwebbed ceiling, it always made my flesh crawl. My fertile brain could only imagine what might be lurking there waiting to pounce as I crept through. But when I was around ten years old I apparently had occasion to go down there, spotted the stock of empties, and realized that I was gazing upon a true bonanza. What looked like dusty old bottles to most people looked like untold riches to me, and with my sister Joan’s help, plans were soon put into effect to mine this mother lode.

There were two factors here that were of invaluable aid.

First was the fact that our best pal Ricky, another mischievous kid who never needed to be asked twice, had a wonderfully functional red wagon, and both he and the wagon were at our disposal.

Second was the fact that our small town had no shortage of barrooms. There was a wealth of them scattered across the landscape, all within easy walking distance, and back then you could cash your beer bottles in at any one of them. Don’t ask me how we, as little kids, knew this, but we did, and we put that knowledge to good use.

And so it was that one fine morning, unbeknownst to our parents, we began hauling beer bottles. We would fill the wagon to capacity and the three of us would tow it to the nearest bar and convert it to cash. Then we would go back for another load and take it to the next barroom along the road. One load per bar, one wagonful at a time, until the cellar was empty and our pockets bulged with more cash than we had ever possessed in our lives. There had to have been at least four or five dollars there, all of it in loose change and we couldn’t wait to start spending it.

We bought presents for everyone and we were so proud of ourselves, we were nearly bursting with it as we headed home.

My mother’s reaction, however, was like a dash of cold water and just as unexpected. Here we thought we had done something great. We had cleaned the cellar, made a pile of money, and we were showering the family with gifts.

All she could think of though was the sight of wagonload upon wagonload of beer bottles being carted out of her cellar and how it must have looked to the neighbors.

“What will the neighbors say?” she wailed, no doubt answering her own question with the logical, “They will think we’re closet drinkers!” She was mortified then, and the thought no doubt still has the power to mortify her to this day.

The relatives from New York continued to visit us every summer, and I am sure my father continued to buy beer in anticipation of their arrival, but I don’t recall ever seeing empties piled up again. The thought of another public expose seemed to have changed their bottle collecting habits forever, and Joan and I were out of business.