My palate is not very refined. I'm not a beer snob. But Heineken is special -- in my memory.
It was the summer of 1969. I had graduated from Texas A&M and been commissioned as an officer in May but would not go on active duty until September. With three months to kill, I took a job as a line boy at Andrau Airpark in Houston, my new bride's hometown. While I was a student at A&M, one of my three part time jobs was at Easterwood Airport, so I had experience.
Still, it was like the book, Captains Courageous. My coworkers were career "line boys" with little education and no prospects while I was a college boy on a lark, slumming it. They taught me a lot about the work ethic, life and... but I digress.
One day, they uncharacteristically leaped swiftly into action with purpose. A curt "come on" and away we sped at maximum velocity hanging on to the tug toward the Baroid hangar. A brilliant blue and red DC3 pivoted around glistening in the afternoon sun, port engine propeller reaching a fluttering crescendo and reluctantly becoming silent in a shrieking gasp. The tail was expertly aimed at the gaping maw of the hangar.
Not as stylish or fast as the squatty Lear jets and arrogant Gulfstreams in the other hangars, the big, vintage DC3 sat tilting upward, facing the sky, proud, ready to go again.
Hector, our supervisor, exchanged pleasantries with the pilot as the passengers, flushed with the booze and excitement of a white wing hunting trip to Mexico, shuffled to their limousines. The pilot had confided something to Hector we could not hear.
To my surprise, Hector motioned us up into the comfortable cabin, something we never did, and opened a refrigerator stocked with cold Heineken. We limited ourselves to one, drinking on the job as it were, then hooked up the tail wheel and tugged the grand lady into her hangar.
So, whenever I have a Heineken, I slip back about 50 years and remember a time in the sun when I did actual work that mattered, with honest men.
Spyderco ClipiTool Standard with Heineken