Hopocalypse Now
At about 3:00 yesterday afternoon I walked out of my office and smelled an unusually acrid odor. I looked around to see if any of the neighbors were burning garbage. No smoke that I could see so I jumped into the venerable Nissan to run an errand. The local news/talk channel was reporting a large fire downtown on South 3rd Avenue. This got my attention. We have an office on South 3rd so I dialed up Kathy the Executive Secretary there and asked how everyone was doing. She said fine but they were pretty nauseous and the smoke was so thick they couldn’t see across the street. I told her to tell everyone they all had my permission to go home. We both laughed then hung up. Little did we know of the tragedy occurring only a block away.Here in Yukimoo we are quite proud of our agricultural bounty. We are known for our apples (in a good year the state produces as much as 100 million boxes) that are shipped worldwide. We are also proud of another lesser-known commodity that comes from the Valley: Hops.
Hops is a strange vine that grows fifteen to twenty feet tall producing cones which are harvested in September. These cones are dried, baled and sent to the world’s breweries to use in flavoring beer. We produce a lot of hops. Mrs. Yak has calculated that 18% of world hop production comes from little ol’ Yakima. I read somewhere that half of all the hops used by Anheuser-Bush come from Yakima.As I crossed the tracks on the north end of town I had an unrestricted view of the plume of smoke rising over the S.S. Steiner Company’s warehouses 3 miles away. What Kathy and I had laughed at was 4% of the nation’s supply of hops in a pungent pall over the city. Beer drinkers everywhere are soon to learn that their precious amber liquid will be a little more precious. Surely something worth crying over.
Epilogue:
Being the genius that I am, I picked up the phone and dialed my broker. Thanks to the run up of hop belly futures my bride and I will be vacationing in Martinique this winter. (I wonder where Desnoes & Geddes gets the hops for their Red Stripe™ Lager...)
posted by Yakimaniac at 11:39 PM
20 Comments:
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I like your title for this article.
But you forgot to tell the people who was the first of the Quadblog to inform you of this tragedy in the making. I was asleep when something caused me to suddenly sit up and tremble with fear and a feeling of panic. Call it a 6th sense. I emailed both you and the lovely Mrs. Yakimaniac saying, "I don't know why, but I feel our nation's beer supply is in some kind of danger. Have either of you checked the hops wherehouse today?"
You both scoffed, knowing nothing at the time of the looming threat to the precious hops. Well, maybe next time you won't be so quick to poo-poo my warnings.
The SC forced me to down a 6 pack of Coors at a very young age, and on the roof of our house no less! I had ample reason to feel a loss of balance.
This was his rather obvious ploy to rid the world of one more beer drinker, less competition for the SC and his kind.
OG man is another purveyor of fine beers, but as for me and my house, well, let's just say that we'll keep off of the roof.
Oddly, the protege of YB and Saginaw Sis have a taste for the hops...so much for the "me and my house" statement of faith.
My Dear SC,
You were indeed Johnny on the spot (or is that Johnny besotted?) regarding this momentous story.
It's just that I didn't have room for you in my very concise and very witty post.
Admiringly yours,
Yak
Dear YB,
Your sense of balance, grace, fashion and poetic timing were undiminished by this sibling abuse. I know. I was there when you performed amazing feats of literary creativity (impromptu poetry), atop dizzying promontories (a chair), in front of rapt audiences (dorm rats), in full costume (underwear). No alcohol was needed.
I expect no less when we commune in a certain garage near the Harvard of Evangelicalism. (Alcohol will be optional.)
Hey you guys who have a better handle on economics than I do, I have a question.
If the price of domestic beer goes up, does that also mean that my favorite imports will also go up? Or does it mean more people will turn to imports? Does the law of supply and demand then come into play which will cause the imports to increase their prices? Or did I just say the same thing twice?
Yaks,
Are you sure no terrorists flew small private planes into the warehouse?
This, of course, would be a very foolish tactic. Think of all the really ticked off people who would want to come looking for them then! Even Osama could not hide from their ire!
And how could they continue to refer to us as the American Satanic Infidels if we have no more beer? It would be to their advantage to keep Americans bleary-eyed and fat!
I'm becoming concerned about beer hoarding. Remember Y2K? Now everyone EXCEPT Mormons will be hoarding at least a one year's supply of cold ones in their garages.
This of course will increase the amount of garage break ins. You may not have heard, but the Chicago suburbs had a serious rash of beer frig burglaries this past summer. WGN News cautioned the entire Midwest to keep their garages locked.
Am I taking all this too far?
You need a new posting and perhaps I could lend a hand. But, only if you truly think that the world (or at least the 2 or 3 of us who regularly read these things) is ready for the story of my travel experiences last week.
The story includes nervous moments going through security (twice for the same flight), anxious moments approaching my seat with a woman comfortably seated in my seat (paranoia reinforced my son) and human frailities on display (my disease is worse than your disease).
It ends with all of my toiletries being left as a tip to the cleaning ladies of the Tucson Courtyard along with some loose change.
But, the story never really ends as I relive it in my mind and on stage over and over again, just like Jerry Seinfeld, only different.
It is written, thou shalt not rush the Yak. Almost everyone knows that the traditional Yakima mourning period for a hops crop loss of this magnitude is 30 days, minimum - torn clothes, ashes on head and no blogging. Wine drinkers cannot truly appreciate the magnitude of this tragedy!
So I'm NOT making too big a deal out of the hopacalypse! OG! You agree with me!
Absolutely, my dear Poodle Pastor! Although, but for the sale of Albertons to Supervalu earlier this year, I might have suspected even the Mormons to be hoarding brewskies in their industrial sized coolers!
Do you remember that annoying apocalyptic praise song from our junior high days - the one where the chorus ended - "you've been left behind"? Well, a bottle of beer will soon buy a bag of gold and I wish we'd all been ready.
OG,
Let's see, it went,
"Life was filled with guns and war and everyone got trampled on the floor. I wish we'd all been ready. Children died, the days grew cold, (Larry Norman didn't know about global warming) a piece of bread would buy a bag of gold. I wish we'd all been ready. There's no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you've been left behing."
In my Victoria Station waiting tables days (not my Victoria Secret days) I waited on Larry Norman when he was doing a concert at the Harvard of Evangelicalism. He got furious at me because we didn't carry Perrier!
Shilohman - you are correct! What a nasal-twanged dirge that was! I think I had an above-average youth group (based on participant retention, organic growth and good looking girls) but that song always made me want to go bowling.
Larry Norman was just miffed that he didn't invent the Internet. And haven't you read Michael Crichton? There is no global warming.
Hello-o!
I believe you guys have your own blogs?
OG,
Amazing! The last novel I finished before the move was State of Fear. That was awesome! I never thought global warming was real. Now I know it isn't! I read it in two sittings. Nothing like that Eco novel that I couldn't get into for at least 200 pages. The one I'm reading now is a tough one to get into also. I'm over 100 pages in and it's just now showing a glimmer of promise.
Oh, and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, aka the host of this blog. If he would write something new instead of taking days and days of vacation this kind of thing wouldn't happen!
Oh, and about youth groups. You say that song always made you want to go bowling. The thing that bothered me was that even when we went bowling our youth pastor would make us stop and gather for singing and a talk so we could be a witness at the bowling alley. So we had to sing it even when we WERE bowling!
This is actually better than posting to your own blog because there you want your words to have lasting impact so you agonize over what to write, procrastinate and then go look at everyone else's blog and post just a little something.
Sometimes we had to witness in public places, but they rarely sprang it on us. I think that dirge would have gone over well in a bowling alley because pretty much everyone else would have been drinking beer and smoking christians.
My good friend, Doug, and I would occasionally take a detour when we were supposed to be headed for Young Life Club. We would go to R-rated movies instead. When we went to see The Godfather the ticket seller asked what year I was born in. Being the brainiac that I am I added a year instead of subtracting a year in order to be 17. She smiled and sold me the ticket anyway. Another time we went to see Summer of '42 and ever since I have always checked twice to be certain that it is, indeed, a breast and not an elbow.
Doug and I also would skip 6th period shop class which is why I cannot rebuild your transmission. One of the families in our church bought a pool table and left their back door open all the time so we could use it any time - day or night. Doug and I got to be pretty good pool players, all the while clinging to our cherished pre-trib heritage.
I, too, devoured State of Fear. What are you reading now that is glimmering after 100 pages?
OG,
The title of my current reading labor is "Q" by Luther Blisset. The back flap of the dust cover says, "The four pseudonymous authors of Q live in Bologna, Italy." One of them must be Eco!
It is an historical novel about the Peasants' Rebellion in Germany right after the Reformation. I'll let you know if it picks up from here on in.
Have you two never heard of "instant messaging"?
Shilohmensch - just let me know if the pesants prevailed.
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