This year’s back yard grilling and gabfest has come and gone, when old friends gather to sit on our deck and gab. You know, old-fashioned conversation. It’s been an annual event now since 2014 on the second Saturday of June. In recent years, I’ve been claiming that we gather to celebrate Cole Porter’s birthday, which was on Sunday this year. No Porter songs were sung at the event, however, probably because none of us can sing.

Beer bottles remain behind. Actually, beer and hard cider this year. I drank the Two Hearted Ale and tried one of the ciders this year, though I forget which.

We had a domestic array of alcohol this time. Know-Nothing brews, you might say. In fact, not just domestic, but all Midwestern.

The Holy Moses White Ale was brewed in Cleveland, while the Two Hearted Ale originated in Comstock, Michigan. Both ciders were from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, despite the Union Jack-themed label, and it did my heart glad to learn that.

Among Wisconsin towns, I have a sentimental attachment to Stevens Point, where I spent a few days in the summer of ’78. If you can’t be sentimental about the summer of ’78, when can you be?