| |
Frank Cotolo
October 3, 2013 |
| |
|
It's time for the 16-day festival that began in Germany and is celebrated in many forms wherever
there is beer, which is all over the world. I don't know of one country where beer is unavailable,
so if you are not within driving distance of an Oktoberfest then you are being cheated out of a
great time.
|
| |
|
Great times always include beer and the Germans knew that back in the 1800s when October came
around. They were still drinking like it was summertime and the heat was profound and their sweat
trickled from their wrinkled brows and one of them looked at a calendar.
|
| |
|
"It is not longer the hot months," he said, though in his native tongue.
|
| |
|
And when the group of men looked at the calendar to see the whole month of September had passed
without their knowing it, a few of them puked and others laughed and one of them shouted, spilling
his current mug of beer.
|
| |
|
"Let's spell this month differently and have a festival."
|
| |
|
They all agreed and began to misspell October on napkins that had accumulated on the table where
they all sat drinking.
|
| |
|
They wrote: Oktuber, Oktooba, Oktuleeba, Oklokaber and so on.
|
| |
|
Just as they stopped their feverish scribbling, in came a man with an accordion, followed by six
women in strict Bavarian garb. The accordion player was pressing out notes and chords, even though
he chewed on a bratwurst. Dancing broke out and the beer men each grabbed a woman and jumped to
the beat while lifting their knees high enough to raise the woman's skirt.
|
| |
|
When the accordion player swallowed his bratwurst and let out a sonorous belch, he said, "What is
this festive play that comes to us in October?"
|
| |
|
"A fest," said one of the men dancing, the one that pulled down his partner's top, revealing two
hefty gobs of womanly body that were always hidden in public.
|
| |
|
No one knows exactly what happened after the men shouted the spelling of the new name for the
drinking, dancing and eating spree: "O-K-T-O-B-E-R-F-E-S-T."
|
| |
