Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, shares the news with the keeper that the Schlitz Brewery is all done after 150 years of helping “Make Milwaukee famous.”
The keeper joined the Milwaukee Journal staff way back when payola favors to reporters was in vogue and on the first Milwaukee Journal Christmas Eve the keeper found a case of Schlitz on his front step even though he lived in Madison.
Later the keeper did a Journal series called Drink, Drank, Drunk in which he took a look at the dominating and destructive role of the alcohol industry in modern culture, including his own personal issues.
The series elicited more deep-down emotional response than anything the keeper has ever done. It was reprinted in pamphlet form and offered free to the public. Once when the keeper went to replenish his supply to fill the many requests he got as he traveled the state, he was told that the Journal’s supply had been exhausted and was no longer available after Milwaukee breweries requested all available copies to “distribute to their employees.”
Print copies of Drink, Drank, Drunk were once available on Amazon but now only in audio and Kindle format. And except for a few minor details the series main points are as relevant today as they were 40 some years ago when it was published.
One of Pyllis’s shocks when she came to the US from her Canadian birthplace was the number of taverns in the small towns. That was long before she had read Drink, Drank, Drunk.
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