When my sister Alice was born, my parents were given two beautiful bottles of whiskey with matching gold-leaf inscription that read: "Sunny Brook The Pure Food Whiskey" with emblems of the 1910 CA State fair printed at the top. The liquor was used for festivities and as well as a medicine (i.e. a few drops on the gums helped calm a teething baby and a few drops for the mother helped smooth out the nerves).
Well, Floyd Faber (he was papa’s nephew and Aunt Frankie’s son by Buntz) was at the house one day and said to papa, “Let me have one of the bottles and I will take it into town and have it refilled at the tavern" (back in those days good bottles where scarce to come by, and so you would bring it into town and have it refilled directly from the oak barrel at the bar). Papa gave it to him and on the way home the weather was getting a little nippy as he rode his horse along, and so he began to take a few nips from the bottle. He ended up drinking all the whiskey and throwing the empty bottle away! For years when mama would get mad at papa, she would remind him how he gave away her precious gold-leaf whiskey bottle- his only defense was hang his head in silence.
Over forty years passed and then my father passed away- he was gone about five years I think. Well, I was coming up Vachel Lane on Old Highway 101 in the Model-T Ford when a voice came in my head shouting, “Go get your mother’s bottle!”. I stopped the pick-up right there, and went over to the S.L.O. creek where the county had just put a big cut in the bank. I climbed into the creek, I looked up, and there under about thirty feet of rock and sand was the neck of a bottle sticking out. I climbed up the bank and dug around the neck of the bottle and extracted it from the fill. It was the exact twin to the other bottle lost so many years ago! I took it home, set it on the table and said, “Mama, papa just sent you back your bottle.” At that moment, there appeared a big smile on mama’s face as warm as sunshine.
Well, Floyd Faber (he was papa’s nephew and Aunt Frankie’s son by Buntz) was at the house one day and said to papa, “Let me have one of the bottles and I will take it into town and have it refilled at the tavern" (back in those days good bottles where scarce to come by, and so you would bring it into town and have it refilled directly from the oak barrel at the bar). Papa gave it to him and on the way home the weather was getting a little nippy as he rode his horse along, and so he began to take a few nips from the bottle. He ended up drinking all the whiskey and throwing the empty bottle away! For years when mama would get mad at papa, she would remind him how he gave away her precious gold-leaf whiskey bottle- his only defense was hang his head in silence.
Over forty years passed and then my father passed away- he was gone about five years I think. Well, I was coming up Vachel Lane on Old Highway 101 in the Model-T Ford when a voice came in my head shouting, “Go get your mother’s bottle!”. I stopped the pick-up right there, and went over to the S.L.O. creek where the county had just put a big cut in the bank. I climbed into the creek, I looked up, and there under about thirty feet of rock and sand was the neck of a bottle sticking out. I climbed up the bank and dug around the neck of the bottle and extracted it from the fill. It was the exact twin to the other bottle lost so many years ago! I took it home, set it on the table and said, “Mama, papa just sent you back your bottle.” At that moment, there appeared a big smile on mama’s face as warm as sunshine.
