Field Trip
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost
So while the guy from this poem was taking the road less traveled, I took the road to Beverages and More. As I stated earlier, I love this store. All the Scotch talk got me worked up. My bottle of 12 year Macallan was running low, so I thought to myself, "What the Hell. It's time for a field trip."
I picked up some German wheat beer, crackers, a few singles of booze, and a bottle of 16 year Lagavulin. Opening the bottle was almost a religious experience. 16 plus years ago some random person in Scotland went about the process of making this whiskey, labored over it, andhopefully embraced the process lovingly. As I am writing this I am sipping a part of a bottle of history. It's smoky, and peety and tastes the way that Scotch should taste. It takes me about one to two hours to drink a single.
Anyway, most of the time when you think of a Scotch drinker, you think of an old "gentleman" sitting by a roaring fire place, maybe smoking a pipe with some sort of hound asleep at his feet. At least that's what I think about when I think of Scotch drinker. But what really jumped out at me with this, is the idea of a gentleman. Where did this term come from, and what does it really mean?
I'd guess that this concept of the gentleman originated from the 17th or 18th century. At some point, people other than royalty weren't strictly tied to the land. They had time to enjoy life instead of just survive it. So attributes other than killing animals and growing crops or fighting off mauraders became prized.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Personally, I think the concept of a gentleman I think of the following: a man who embraces and enjoys the daily maintenace of life, i.e. shaving, cooking, personal hygene, clothing, but also gets down to cases in whatever their given profession is. It is a high standard to strive for, and I think it is as important now than it has ever been before.
That's what I've been thinking about as I have as I have been sipping my Scotch.
I ordered a pair of pants this week from an online vendor: http://www.bonobospants.com/. Ordering things online is always a dicey enterprise, but these pants fit like they were created specifically to cover my backside. They are nothing short of miraculous. I'm going to order some more pants at the end of this week. If anybody is out there looking for pants, this is a great place look.
All right. That's all I got in the tank right now. I've shined my shoes, I've got laundry in the dryer, and 3/4ths of a tank of gas in the car. Not sure about you, but I am ready to kick ass this week.
Namaste
-Robert Frost
So while the guy from this poem was taking the road less traveled, I took the road to Beverages and More. As I stated earlier, I love this store. All the Scotch talk got me worked up. My bottle of 12 year Macallan was running low, so I thought to myself, "What the Hell. It's time for a field trip."
I picked up some German wheat beer, crackers, a few singles of booze, and a bottle of 16 year Lagavulin. Opening the bottle was almost a religious experience. 16 plus years ago some random person in Scotland went about the process of making this whiskey, labored over it, andhopefully embraced the process lovingly. As I am writing this I am sipping a part of a bottle of history. It's smoky, and peety and tastes the way that Scotch should taste. It takes me about one to two hours to drink a single.
Anyway, most of the time when you think of a Scotch drinker, you think of an old "gentleman" sitting by a roaring fire place, maybe smoking a pipe with some sort of hound asleep at his feet. At least that's what I think about when I think of Scotch drinker. But what really jumped out at me with this, is the idea of a gentleman. Where did this term come from, and what does it really mean?
I'd guess that this concept of the gentleman originated from the 17th or 18th century. At some point, people other than royalty weren't strictly tied to the land. They had time to enjoy life instead of just survive it. So attributes other than killing animals and growing crops or fighting off mauraders became prized.
Fast forward to the 21st century. Personally, I think the concept of a gentleman I think of the following: a man who embraces and enjoys the daily maintenace of life, i.e. shaving, cooking, personal hygene, clothing, but also gets down to cases in whatever their given profession is. It is a high standard to strive for, and I think it is as important now than it has ever been before.
That's what I've been thinking about as I have as I have been sipping my Scotch.
I ordered a pair of pants this week from an online vendor: http://www.bonobospants.com/. Ordering things online is always a dicey enterprise, but these pants fit like they were created specifically to cover my backside. They are nothing short of miraculous. I'm going to order some more pants at the end of this week. If anybody is out there looking for pants, this is a great place look.
All right. That's all I got in the tank right now. I've shined my shoes, I've got laundry in the dryer, and 3/4ths of a tank of gas in the car. Not sure about you, but I am ready to kick ass this week.
Namaste
posted by Zen_Accountant at 2:05 PM
1 Comments:
I love your posts. As usual they make me think about things I'm already familiar with in a new way. What is a gentleman? I typed "Gentleman" into the Google image search. Exactly as I expected the first 7 pictures (excluding the usual porn that an uncensored search yields) are of men in dark suits; 5 of them have canes and 6 have top hats. This is exactly what I picture a gentleman to be. Refined, classy, and wealthy. However I like to think of myself as a gentleman even though I'm none of those things. I feel a gentleman is kind, considerate, moral, charitable, and socially responsible. It is funny how what I think and what I feel are totally different.
Cheers to you and your bottle of history.
MAD
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