The vilest drink known to mankind . . .

There are many ways to begin social discourse around the world; sweet tea in the South would be an excellent positive example. But here it begins with the vilest drink known to humans. By here I mean the former Yugoslavia. I have seen them make the stuff in Macedonia and in Bosnia, in copper stills that spit out the horror one drip at a time.

How bad is it? Well, when I was a kid cutting lawns to make a buck, I would often be forced to get a section of garden hose, feed that hose down into the gas tank of my mother's old buick, and then suck leaded gasoline out of her tank. The trick was to get the gas moving through the hose at a fast clip and right before you sucked a big mouthful of gasoline into your mouth, and I mean right before, you ripped the hose away from your mouth, and stuffed it into the gas can at your feet. If you were successful, gas poured from the hose into the gas can. If you weren't successful, either you quit sucking too soon and the gas all ran back down into the tank, or you sucked a moment too long and got a mouthful of Chevron's best (or a lungful if you were especially inexperienced). I remember those days fondly, the time of life was wonderful, the taste of leaded gasoline was awful.

I have now revised my opinion about gasoline being the vilest liquid know to man . . . rajkija has taken over the number one spot. While I have not syphioned gasoline out of a car in decades, unfortunately rajkija is a normal part of my everyday routine. It is the way "real men" start their social discourse here.

My visit yesterday with my 83 year old neighbor is a classic example. Uncle Lubay as I respectfully call him, walks by our house constantly. He can't see me as he is about 3/4's blind, but he knows my voice perfectly and can instantly recognize me when I speak. I usually am outside working my my roses or portucalas when he comes by shuffling along, trying to work the kinks out of his hurting joints and such. He keeps careful track of when I have been gone on one of my frequent trips somewhere in the former Yugoslavia, and when I greet him as he passes by, his face lights up and he always invites me to come to his house for a coffee.

Now I have been dodging this coffee at his house event for as long as I can for a long list of reasons, but he finally cornered me a few days ago and I pinned me down in such a way that I had no wiggle room -- you don't live 83 years and not learn how to get your way. So I grabbed my tire pump and headed over to his house which is behind ours and repaired the tires on his wheelbarrel that were flat. I suspect he intentionally let the air of those tires.

"Oh David, now we can have our coffee!" he exclaimed. Now that I was at his home, there was no escape. So Uncle calls to his daughter who lives with him and said, fix us a coffee girl! Of course before we can drink the sludge they call coffee here, we have to drink a shot glass of his gasoline, ur . . ., I mean rajkija.

I hemmed and hawed, I made excuse after excuse . . . but there was no use. I was never going to get back home until I drank coffee; I was never going to get coffee until we drank a shot glass of this vile stuff. So we drank and cemented our friendship . . . I have to admit, it's nice having friends who call me a young whippersnapper.