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The Smell Of Beer

It was 3:30 when I walked through the front door from school. Mom was still asleep on the couch and beer cans were still on the coffee table, the house reeked of it. I reached for the air freshener and sprayed it around the whole house.

My sister Bonnie came through the door minutes after me heading straight for our bedroom, throwing her books on her bed she then headed for the kitchen where I was standing with the air freshner..

We had 30 minuted to race and get all the cleaning up done, ridding the house of all my mothers empty beer cans before my dad got home and presenting to him a spotless house.

As usual we kicked into gear without a word. Bonnie grabbed a large paper grocery bag from under the slink that I stood in front of ready to wash the dishes my mother didn't during the day.. Bonnie quickly headed for the front room without waking my mother. We didn't dare wake her because the longer she slept the more sober she would be when my dad got home, thus making a more peaceful evening.

Bonnie quietly picked up all the empty beer cans off the coffee table and headed for the back door as I got busy washing up all the dishes and wiping down the table and sweeping the floor.

When my mother and father met right before the end of the war, my father was just about finished with his navy duties when he would come into town on leave they would go out to the famous night clubs on Geary street in San Francisco and party utill the places closed. They would be joined with my mothers bother, his wife and some new friends they made. Together they would listen to big band music and drink highballs until wasted, it was all apart of the celebration at their ages..

After the war my father married my mother taking on two children of hers from a previous marriage. Then soon afterward my sister Candy was born..

After countless night of parting with the neighbors and waking up to people sleeping on the floor, beer cans all over the house and my mother drunk beyond belief, with young children making their own breakfast, my father woke up one morning and said loudly "THIS IS ENOUGH!". He kicked the neighbors out, woke my mother up to take care of the new baby girl who was being watched by my older bother and sister and proclaimed his new rules..

He'd had enough of drunken nights and the feeling of doing wrong by his children and loudly told her "NO MORE DRINKING,THAT'S IT!. No more booze was allowed in this house ever again after that.

From that moment on my father stuck

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