The most curious of social experiments in America, the beautiful, have been connected with the very intoxicating – in more ways than one – sometimes volatile, often flammable liquids of beer and wine, and those distilled liquors we more commonly refer to as the spirits or hooch.
Two examples immediately come to mind.
The first were would-be villains with designs of a quick hit on Charlie’s Liquor Store, located just south of Fort Worth’s central business district. At the corner of South Main and Magnolia (today, it is part of the JPS mission creep) Charlie’s was an appealing target for stick-’em-ups in the 1960s, ’70 and into the early 1980s.
Charles Satterfield, known to his business neighbors simply as Charlie, was as disagreeable a robbery victim as Ezekiel Elliott is as intractable an NFL holdout. He was also perhaps the last of Fort Worth’s old wild west, a World War II veteran, who detested the punks and hoodlums who regarded his property as theirs and took them on fearlessly.
Newspaper reports tell of a couple of the incidents that made Charlie famous.
In one incident, Charlie asked the robbers if they wanted him to get the money or to get it themselves – dubious court testimony indeed on the surface, considering Charlie was a shoot-first-ask-questions later type guy. Charlie told police that one of the robbers shot him in the eye with a .22-caliber pistol and as he fell behind the counter, he grabbed a .38-caliber pistol — weapons were as accessible as bourbon — and shot at least one of the men.
The two escaped without any money and leaving a trail of blood on the sidewalk. Police officers suggested to Charlie that a trip to the hospital by ambulance was advisable for they eye. Don’t be silly, he said, he would walk to St. Joseph Hospital, only a block south.
In September 1970, Charlie had a gun held on him by Edward Earl Holt, who, Charlie testified, pulled the trigger on the automatic pistol as Gary Cole loaded up a bag from the cash register. It failed to fire. Charlie said he threw a bottle of wine on Holt as he tried to re-cock. Running to the back room, Charlie grabbed a rifle and chased the bandits out of the store, firing on them as they ran eastbound down Magnolia.
Holt was shot in the backside and Cole was fatally wounded.
At trial, Charlie testified that he had been robbed eight times over the years and wounded twice. The wave of marauders never waned. This writer recalls as a 4- or 5-year-old being hustled into the office of his family’s nearby automotive repair business by his grandmother as Charlie confronted yet another pirate with force in the 1970s.
Charlie did not adhere to the caution of “just do as they say, it’ll all soon be over.”
The package store business, of course, never would have been without the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th in 1933. Prohibition was the grandest of all do-gooder good deeds.
Those with the best of intentions have never gotten this right.
And now, 100 years after that grand nationwide social experiment with alcohol, TCU will be trying one of its own and, like the Prohibition era, it will be carried out with noble intent and far-reaching in purpose.
Beer sales are coming to Amon G. Carter Stadium. That, in and of itself, hasn’t been met with resistance from any of the class of proselytizing evangelicals, young men on bicycles or Tom Cruise.
Rather, the beef is owned by the drinkers.
Along with this edict passed down by TCU’s administrative bigshots was another.
No longer will the patrons be able to leave the stadium for a halftime cocktail at the tailgate and return. It is more commonly referred to as “in and out,” as in there will be no more “in-and-outs.” A walk among the masses this weekend found many clasping and squeezing of one’s hands in distress. It looked more like Charlie Sheen on the wagon, this overly excessive display of concern.
This remains the talk of the town.
And if you had paid the weighty price for that parking spot, you might have the same visceral reaction more commonly associated with a visit to the office of your local IRS agent.
Many have vowed not to buy in the lots next year, its value now in free fall because of the new rule.
The decision to sell beer at football games wasn’t all about money, though certainly the bottom line was a hefty consideration. Administrators believe game officials will now be better able to control the flow of alcohol with sales inside. That’s something they’ve had no control over since opening up the parking lots for alcohol two decades ago.
Alcohol in college life doesn’t have the best reputation, but administrators hope the beer sales will actually slow the pace of the kegger.
It has been, simply put, one giant speakeasy outside the stadium. To be fair, no one has ever heard a peep from this writer about the accessibility of a stiff drink. The motto has always been, “lean on it, bartender.”
Coach Gary Patterson is one who is hopeful the new rule will improve his home-field advantage. More often than not, many don’t return to their seats for the second half, instead watching from a TV at the tailgate. With no in-and-outs, the second half of that first one with Arkansas Pine Bluff on Aug. 31 might be more the setting of the quiet area of the school library.
No in-and-out has been a rule at other schools for a while. Still, this does seem to be risky for the university.
It was tailgating that brought the crowds back to Amon Carter. The game itself, in many ways, was secondary to the social scene outside. So much so, that demand caused a skyrocketing escalation in lot spaces.
Tailgating, of course, hasn’t been outlawed, but it will essentially end at kickoff. The choice now is a $7 beer at a concession stand with a line.
In truth, a four-hour college football game often requires more than that. Watching Kansas or in past years a Kliff Kingsbury-coached team that specialized in the art of penalties need liquid liquor-ized accessorizing.
We’ll see how this grand experiment all goes down. Perhaps the flask will enjoy a resurgence.
As well as the vows to park off campus or leave TCU football behind all together. We are after all a people who vowed never to wear a seatbelt because the guvment told us we had to.
Unlike Charlie, the sheep have a way of conforming.