Thursday, April 17, 2025
Epiphany While Pedaling
Forty years ago this month, I am pedaling up Hwy 32 out of Chico, Ca. with my friend Ed. At Santos Way we swerve to miss a shattered brown glass bottle with a SNB Pale Ale label still intact. Ed Mc Laughlin was a unique character... His reactions were quick and he vocalized what was on his mind instantaneously. "That sucks, we did that!" I worked at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. for it's initial five years. Ed would fill in on the capper, washer, labeler when we got in a bind and needed more hands, which was often. "This motorist was not only drinking our ale while he was driving, he slammed his empty onto the shoulder of our favorite bicycle ride." We were sure that SNB drinkers were far classier and more intelligent than that. "This was an act of meaness. We made this possible." In five years of running the Fritz Maytag-gifted bottle washer i calculated that I had hefted one million bar bottles into this hungry machine...twelve at a time with grippers in each hand. Of course, Ed was right. We were responsible for this alcohol-primed behavoir and here it was coming back on us as we recreated. During the last six months of my employ at SNB, I couldn't put this realization behind me.
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