Sunday, March 01, 2009

Beer here

Ronnie Crocker, one of my beer-drinking friends from Texas, has started a beer blog for the Houston Chronicle. He and I worked together at the Bryan-College Station Eagle many eons ago.

There are many Ronnie Crocker stories, mostly drawn from the late mad rush for a couple of pitchers of beer at the Chicken Oil, which closed a half-hour after the paper's final deadline. A high degree of both editing and drinking efficiency was mandatory.

But one of my favorite stories was when he was a young, and short, reporter for the Eagle and I was a prematurely grizzled assistant city editor. He had a late-breaking story that I had to trim to make fit, and he complained mightily.

I tried to soothe him. "You'll never even notice the difference," I said.

"Hey," he said, "when you're my height, every inch counts."

5 comments:

Matt Singer said...

Bier hier, bier hier
oder ich fall um

David said...

Soll das Bier im Keller liegen, und wir hier die Ohmacht kriegen?

David said...

Oops. Das soll natuerlich "Ohnmacht" sein.

Matt Singer said...

Your German is better than mine, natuerlich.

Anonymous said...

As an editor myself these last 15 years, I assure you that I have paid for that comment many times over.

Cheers,