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We were drinking a drink called...”Nippers”.

Now, I like to drink on occasion (now much rarer) and I have a pretty high capacity before strangers can tell I am intoxicated. I don’t get nasty (so I am told) I just laugh a lot more...:)

So, we are down on the beach, drinking these Nippers, and I have no idea what is in them. At least two types of liquor, with some kind of juice or sweet liquid.

Anyway, I had two or three of these, and I thought they were pretty good. When the next round came down to us, three of the group said theirs didn’t taste like they had any alcohol in them.

I gallantly volunteered to walk back up the the bar and have the bartender check them out.

If you have ever told a bartender something like that, they usually grab a swizzle straw, trap some and taste it or something like that.

In this case, without hesitation, the bartender turned around, grabbed two gallon jugs of some kind of booze (guessing rum and vodka) and proceeded to simply fill the cups...he looked up as he did it, and said “Say When.”

I bought the drinks back down, and the folks said they didn’t want them, so...can’t let them go to waste...they have to go down SOME hatch, right?

We decided to walk up to the...er...bar...if that is what it could be called, and I gathered up two folding chairs and a bag so my arms were full. As I went to get up off my knees, I lost my balance and pitched forward (still kneeling)

Most Un-intoxicated people would simply let go of the items, break their fall with their hands, regather the items and keep on going.

As I toppled forward, that process simply didn’t work, and at the last moment I tucked my chin down and the crown of my head went straight into the sand.

Ouch. I was completely intoxicated at that point, though, and while I didn’t feel a thing, I could not turn my head side to side. That lasted for about three more weeks, I had an MRI that found nothing, but to this day, I have a slight grinding noise in my neck when I turn my head from side to side, though the pain is generally not an issue.

Fortunately for me, there was a woman in our group who appeared to be even more intoxicated than I was, and was not functional. I was functional, could walk and talk, but we had to carry her up the ladder from the raft into the boat. They were afraid she had alcohol poisoning.

To this day, the other people maintain that we must have had some drug slipped into our drinks, but...I don’t think so, at least not on my part.

When I heard this song, much later, though, I laughed uproariously at it. It fit the place to a “T”.

Drinking stories? I served 20 years in the Navy, I have drinking stories!!!

One of my favorites I remember (or don’t remember) happened on my first Med cruise on the USS Nimitz.

In the pearl of the Mediterranean, Naples Italy. (little sarcasm there) Isn’t it wonderful that the Navy takes you to all these wonderful places and dumps you off in the worst part of town?

I went ashore about 1000. I had the sniffles, figured I was coming down with a cold. Due to that, I had decided to kill the cold with screwdrivers. You know, vodka and orange juice. Alcohol and vitamin C. That should fix me up. So I started drinking screwdrivers, going from one bar to another. Having a good time messing with the “buy me drink” girls that my DivO warned us about.

Around 1900 I ended up in the San Francisco Bar. Told the bartender what I was drinking and he asked me if I wanted to try a different vodka. The only thing I could read on the bottle was “Vodka” and “Product of U.S.S.R.” I’m already feeling “ten feet tall and bulletproof” so I agree. After (I think) 3 or 4 drinks I realized that I better head back to the ship while I still could.

Now realize that aircraft carriers do not pull into Naples, they anchor out and we had to ride boats to and from shore.

So I walked out of the San Francisco Bar, turned toward Fleet Landing (where the boats came in) took two steps and........

Woke up in my bunk on the ship the next morning. Stripped to my skivvies and my clothes stowed in my locker, as if I had come back sober. 30 years later and I still have no idea what happened. And I’ve never drank Russian vodka again.