Maybe I Shouldn't Have Driven While Drunk

Written By:  Andrew Eide

The year was 1970 and although I was not the legal age of 21 to drink in the State of California, I was 17 years of age which means I could legally drive and I had my Driver’s License.

Back in those days beer cans were metal and not aluminum. Also you had to open the top with a can opener as the pull tabs for beer cans were not invented yet.

I would meet my friends at a canyon that was about half way between where I lived in the Sequoia Country Club area of East Oakland and where Steve lives in the Montclair District of Oakland in the northeast side of Oakland.

We would all manage to get people to purchase beer for us and we brought what we had to the canyon. There was a rope swing tied to a large branch of a large tree and we would get drunk and swing over the canyon on the rope.

We didn’t just casually “sip” our beer. We had a unique way of doing it. I forgot the term used for what we did but it went like the following.

We would use the can opener to poke a triangular hole in the side of the can near the bottom of the beer can. Then we would hold the can up so that our mouth was covering the triangular hole we made in the side of the bottom of the can. Then our friends would use their can openers to open the top of the beer can and we would start sucking on the hole on the bottom of the can. With the air rushing in from the top we were able to drink an entire can of beer in 3 to 5 seconds.

Now here’s the problem with what we were doing. When you sip a beer you may be able to drink one or two beers and then you start to feel the effects of the alcohol. But since we were downing beers in the manner described above, sucking in an entire beer in 3 to 5 seconds, we would often down 5 or 6 beers in a matter of just a few minutes.

We would sit there and instead of a gradual feeling of getting drunk the feeling would hit you as if someone just slammed a brick into the side of your head. You would go from sober to falling down drunk in an instant.

On the night in question we ran out of beer quickly. I decided that I would drive my friends to the nearest liquor store located on Skyline Drive in Oakland. I figured either they would be able to pass for being 21 years of age or they could ask a stranger to purchase beer for us.

Now here’s the problem. I got in my car, which was the 1959 Chevrolet Impala that used to be my sister’s car, and it was a huge tank of a car, and we started driving. That evening I found out how the term BLIND DRUNK came to be. I swear I was so drunk that I could barely see over the steering wheel and for sure I couldn’t even see out the windshield and no way I could see the hood of the car.

Somehow, totally by sheer luck, we made it to the liquor store and a nice stranger purchased beer for us and we paid him for his time and trouble. I drove back to the canyon, again still blind drunk, and to this day I have no clue how I drive 3 or 4 miles round trip, totally blind drunk, without having an accident or driving over a cliff and killing or injuring those of us in the car.

Had I said to myself that evening “Maybe I shouldn’t drive when I am so drunk that I can’t see” then I wouldn’t still have this memory with me 41 years after the incident.

Bottom line:  Don’t drink and drive.