One Christmas time, I forget which Christmas, but that's when I usually went to Los Angeles to visit family, and while walking I ran into Frank in a very fancy shopping district. The holiday lights and displays were out, the loudspeakers squeaked out subdued and slightly tinny Christmas songs, and the small expensive shops were decorated with lush green garlands and red ribbons. We were passing the liquor store, and I saw a beautiful item in the window. A small bottle of very expensive whiskey, about the size of a large hand grenade, holding a rich amber-colored most exquisite liquor. It was a beautiful presentation on its own, and I hovered to peer more closely.

The bottle had a horse on top. So I went in to look at the item on the shelf. And then I had to go to the shelves where the other bottles were. Each bottle had a horse, but upon closer examination each bottle had a small letter as well, held in a delicate oval frame by the horse's rear foot. And each horse was slightly different as were the letters. "Here's an A, Here's another A, here's an N" And I was so keen, then, I could look through the bottles and not even a third of the way through, like in a flash tell him each letter was for a barrel and the letters spelled out

B-L-A-N-T-O-N-S.

And I laughed and said, "That's cool .... " And then, "but where's the apostrophe?"

(Did you ever hear that one before, where another song title might have come from?)  ¶ 1/02/2011 09:13:00 PM