{"id":597,"date":"2011-02-24T03:06:38","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T03:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/?p=597"},"modified":"2011-02-24T19:53:39","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T19:53:39","slug":"my-dad-on-saudi-arabia-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/24\/my-dad-on-saudi-arabia-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"My Dad, on Saudi Arabia (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For some the image of Saudi Arabia may be one of\u00a0foreboding, where Western culture clashes with strict\u00a0Islamic law, and to some degree that is true. And yet\u00a0despite the rules and regulations there was life there. As\u00a0Roger was so fond of saying, rules were meant to be\u00a0broken, and nowhere was it more obvious than in the mix\u00a0of compromise and discretion of Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Sidiki \u2013 booze \u2013 seemed to flow from all directions,\u00a0and some was really pretty good. Most, however, was run\u00a0maybe once halfway with care through a still, and that stuff\u00a0would give you the most terrible hangover you can\u00a0imagine. Looking back I\u2019m surprised worse didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

I suppose that was why I invested in a still with\u00a0another fellow. We kept it at our house and ran it in the\u00a0\u201cutility\u201d room that seemed to be purpose made for the\u00a0thing. Our son Roger did most of the work. He\u2019d say that\u00a0he needed sugar and yeast and whatnot and Helene would\u00a0run him up to the commissary with the hopes of getting her\u00a0own grocery shopping done. Of course with several 50Kg\u00a0bags of sugar in the trunk there was little room for much\u00a0else. He\u2019d mix this with \u201craw\u201d water in huge plastic trash\u00a0barrels, let it sit for a week or so, after which time it was \u00a0ready for the still.<\/p>\n

Roger produced something beyond mere Sidiki. With\u00a0great care and attention, he would run the mash through\u00a0five times. From fifty or so gallons of mash we might\u00a0ultimately yield five gallons of smooth, five-star Saudka.\u00a0Never once did we sell even a drop. We could have and\u00a0made a lot of money the way others were selling their onerun\u00a0stuff, but we didn\u2019t. We gave ours away and were\u00a0happy to do so.<\/p>\n

Of course running a still was not entirely safe. The\u00a0workers could turn off the water at any time without any\u00a0notice. That happened to a house on the next street over\u00a0across from us. Rumor was the wife was in the\u00a0house at the time and got severely hurt in the explosion.\u00a0The husband sued the company, etc. Supposedly he won\u00a0the case and still had his job at the time I was leaving. I\u00a0don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not, but that was the rumor at\u00a0the time.<\/p>\n

Wine there was pretty decent mostly. Helene couldn\u2019t\u00a0resist getting in on the act and eventually concocted what\u00a0she called \u201cjungle juice\u201d which is really a catch-all term\u00a0and generally described just about anything put in a bucket\u00a0to ferment. But her \u201cjuice\u201d was quite remarkable, delicious\u00a0actually.<\/p>\n

Even our son Paul, who was barely thirteen at the\u00a0time, took an interest though it was quite obvious his\u00a0knowledge was limited to the generalities. Some lessons\u00a0are best learned on one\u2019s own, so when Paul declared his\u00a0first batch ready after three days of fermenting using a\u00a0plastic bag and rubber band in lieu of an airlock, I said\u00a0nothing. I thought he would have stopped at the first taste,\u00a0but I guess he was more excited about the idea of drinking\u00a0wine, and wine that he made by himself, that the taste and\u00a0cloudiness and froth of fermentation still in progress didn\u2019t\u00a0even slow him down. Not after one, two, three full tin cups\u00a0of the stuff. Why he settled on a tin cup or where it came\u00a0from I\u2019ve no idea \u2013 definitely not the correct way to drink.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, the after effects of this misadventure\u00a0were short lived and soon forgotten. Indeed, just a couple\u00a0of years later Paul had the wine making down to near\u00a0science and, at one point, had several different varieties all\u00a0going at once. Every time Paul was home from school\u00a0there was wine being made in the house. That was fine until I had to leave on business \u2013 the house would be\u00a0empty and so vulnerable to inspection from the security\u00a0police (the rumor was that they came in at such times\u00a0looking for contraband).<\/p>\n

This particular time, Paul was already back at school a\u00a0week or so before and I was just getting ready to leave the\u00a0house when I suddenly thought I\u2019d better make sure the\u00a0house was clear of anything incriminating. So here I was\u00a0all dressed to go to the airport to catch this flight to who\u00a0knows where now, and I open the cabinet door under the\u00a0kitchen sink. There were six bottles of wine, all red, that\u00a0Paul had sealed just before he left. I thought, \u201cOh my\u00a0word, I\u2019ve got to get rid of this!\u201d<\/p>\n

The first five went down the drain without incident. I\u00a0was not so fortunate with the sixth. As soon as I released\u00a0the top (it was a grape-juice bottle with a Grolsch type cap)\u00a0wine sprayed everywhere. It was on the ceiling. It was on\u00a0the floor. It was all over the walls. And it was all over me.\u00a0I remember relating the story to Paul some time later. He\u00a0said, \u201cMan I wish I had been there!\u201d to which I replied,\u00a0\u201cMan, you\u2019re damned lucky you weren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are many stories I can recall from those days.\u00a0Rumors of some fellow being caught with a menorah \u2013 that\u00a0was bad. Him being found \u201cstarring\u201d in several risqu\u00e9 home movies \u2013 well, we never did hear if they found the\u00a0young woman with the butterfly tattoo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some the image of Saudi Arabia may be one of\u00a0foreboding, where Western culture clashes with strict\u00a0Islamic law, and to some degree that is true. And yet\u00a0despite the rules and regulations there was life there. As\u00a0Roger was so fond of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-troubles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}