Happy Belated Kansas Beer Liberation Day, everyone!

Fireworks!

Since I was a kid, beer in Kansas was a hush-hush word. To this day, my mom still can't bring herself to mention the word "beer." Whenever she hands me birthday cash, she always says, "Don't spend it on 'you-know-what.'"

Well. She wasn't alone in hating the "Debbil's Drink" in horrible, horrible Kansas. Some time ago, years before my birth, God-fearing, holy-water tossers gathered at a pointy-white-hat meeting to make some nonsense Kansas law...

"Brother Clem, we must give the people what they want."

"What're you speaking of, Brother Cletus?"

"Why...beer, of course."

"Shut yer dang soup-hole, Brother Clem! Blasphemer!" (Brother Cletus proceeded to beat down Brother Clem, a chore considering the constraints of the white-sheeted, pointy-headed outfits they were wearing).

But, cooler (less pointy) heads took the matter into mind. Kinda. There was a compromise. And, lo, beer was legally unleashed in Kansas, but it was watered down to half of the alcohol content, thus comprising the infamous "3.2 beer."

Only good thing about that stuff was we could drink it in college once we turned 18. (Don't even get me going on the cut-rate, cheap, horrible beer we survived on. Anyone remember Shaffer beer? Even worse, the short-lived novelty "M.A.S.H." awfulness? Once that show ended, that late TV show beer went on sale for about .50 a six-pack. We became fans!)

But! As of April 1st, 2019, the law changed. The great overseers got rid of 3.2% beer. Now, we can actually--finally!--wondrously!--walk into a grocery store and buy real beer! Hallelujah! At the grocer the other day, I saw a billboard/sign reading, "You're still in Kansas, Toto! But we finally have real beer!"

Somewhere, Toto's doing back-flips of joy.

Now, if only we could buy beer on Sunday before noon. Or holidays. Sigh. You just can't take the pointy hat mind-set completely out of Kansas lawmakers now, can you?

While I'm going off on everything Kansas, check out my book, Twisted Tales from Tornado Alley, a summation (in short stories) of everything wrong with the Midwest as I see it. Oh, it's spooky and funny, too!