Replies

I've told this story here before, but this seems like the right place to repeat it. Of course it's hearsay, but still (somehow) believable.

Right after the death of Michael Kennedy in a ski accident, Howard Stern was interviewing some reporter who's beat was the Kennedy family and their shenanigans. I think he worked for a Boston paper.

This reporter was describing all the logistical considerations that went into organizing the typical Kennedy ski weekend. He was going down a list of essential elements, like this: "you've got your lift helicopters, your warm-up tent, your catered food tent, your vodka sauna tent..."

When Howard Stern heard him say "vodka sauna tent," he said "Whoa, whoa, whoa... back up, back up. What was that last one? Did you say vodka sauna tent?"

The reporter replied that that was, indeed, what he had said. Howard Stern asked him to explain.

The reporter explained that a "vodka sauna tent" was an essential feature of every Kennedy ski outing. Elements of the Kennedy advance team operation were responsible for causing to be erected, near the top of whatever mountain the Family was reserving for its exclusive use that day, a tent in which several sauna-type heaters were placed. One or more of these were set up for conventional operation, to generate copious amounts of heat so that those who occupied the tent would not feel uncomfortably cold in various stages of undress. One or two of the sauna machines, however, would not be supplied with water to pour over the hot rocks. Instead, these machines would be so configured as to cause pure vodka, or scotch, or some other distilled spirits, to be introduced onto the pile of hot rocks, and by such introduction be vaporized and thereby gassified, causing them to assume a physical state that would be readily absorbed through the nasal (and other) tissues of those Kennedies (and their friends) who chose to venture into the tent before enjoying their downhill adventure.

The reporter opined that the vodka sauna tent may have had something to do with the demise of Michael Kennedy, although it he had been observed at the time to have been participating in a rather boisterous game of ski football, in which a soda bottle is tossed back and forth between skiers as they wend their way downhill.

(steely)