Polish Male Bonding: Drinking - Singing Brothers
This year’s extended, month-long Carnevale season (Candlemas, Feb 2 nd to Ash Wednesday, Mar 2, 2022) is an excellent opportunity to approach, what in some circles (especially church religious) can be a misunderstood, easily manipulated, neuralgic issue: drinking alcohol. The purist US Prohibition movement, sometimes called “teetotalism” (pre-1920s), was led by numerous Christian denominations. “Temperance” supporters sought absolute de-legalization of all alcohol consumption. Illegal production became commonplace and criminal activity rose. My mother, as a child, was paid five cents a gallon to watch the family store’s still. After ten short years, prohibition created uncontrollably unhealthy drinking habits and was finally repealed in 1933 with the 21 st Constitutional Amendment. A personal choice to abstain signifies fortitude, as with Sampson (Nm 6:1-21). Sacred Scriptures also states wine consumption brings gladness to the human heart (Ps 104:14
