Dinner parties at my home usually begin with cocktails around 7:30 p.m. This way, guests can visit with my wife and my 5-year-old son while I shake and stir drinks in the kitchen.
The scenario of a 5-year-old watching his father rattle a cocktail shaker might strike some child psychologists as odd, although I like to think of it as coming of age in the big city. Moderation is on full display when my son, clad in his nighttime pajamas, weaves through the crowd.
He's upstairs in bed by 8:30, long before any guests are drunk. Some things are meant only for adult eyes, tipsiness and sex being two prime examples that quickly come to mind. It's what early bedtimes are all about.
What's appropriate for a young boy is dropping olives in chilled martini glasses and feeling the icy touch of the cocktail shaker. It's adult enough to be exciting, yet completely harmless, a sneak peak at his own maturity down the road.
Growing up in the rustbelt town of Struthers, Ohio, I listened to teenage friends who described a rite of passage they shared with their iron worker dads. Their first drink took place at their dad's side at one of the corner taverns. Two glasses of Miller High Life and two shots of Seagram's 7 whiskey would be placed in front of them. The boy was usually 18, not quite legal age, but the bartender looked the other way this one time. They downed the drinks in unison, and my friends often laughed about the way they'd spit part of the whiskey on the bar.
My dad never took me to a corner tavern for a whiskey shot, probably because he didn't frequent the local taverns. He was a high school teacher, and regular trips to the tavern weren't part of his routine -- although like most men in the Youngstown area he spent many years working in the steel mills.
Times had changed enough by the time I was 16 that many old traditions like the coming-of-age whiskey shot were a thing of the past. The mills were closing, and so were the taverns that operated outside the workers' gates.
I imagine that somewhere in some factory town there's dad treating his son to a whiskey and a beer, although I imagine these events happen less frequently. It's a thing of the past, like delivered milk and afternoon newspapers, ready to be replaced by something new.
As a father, I have approximately 13 years to determine what rite of passage I'll share with my son. The only thing I know is that it won't involve shots and beer.
In the meantime, at the next dinner party, he'll help me pluck mint leaves from our garden for Mojitos. He can drop the Maraschino cherries in the Manhattans. He'll shake the shaker.
It's fun and games. It's also preparation for whatever boy-to-man ritual we'll experience down the road. ©
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