Meet Brian

El Toro Brewing Company, Morgan Hill, CA

Meet Brian. I just did. In a way, I met him a few times, though during the same sitting. The fun part of bellying up to a bar (besides the obvious alcohol consumption) is the social potential created by your grabbing of a stool. My bar neighbor this afternoon opened the conversation with the traditional “Where do you live” prompt. Trouble was, I wasn't sure how to answer. My instinctual answer was Dallas, but I followed that with the caveat that my previous statement wasn't really true, or at least not just yet. The necessary explanation of my nomadic lifestyle soon had Brian caught up in the chat and he told of his past, describing geographic relocations, career changes, and troubles with John Law (“...it wasn't even my gun...”).

A life of manual labor and independent business practices, of which marijuana sales –and consumption – seemed to be a good part, coupled with military experience, concert photography, and what sounded like a lot of white lines to inhale resulted in a man who had, at age 52, new objectives in his duration here. He recently enrolled in undergraduate study at a nearby community college, yet had already changed his major 3 or 4 times. His current goal was to be a dietician (the irony of which did not escape me as we ate fried foods and drank beers) and to not just stop at the undergraduate level, but to achieve either a Master's, Doctorate, or both. He seemed very pleased with his newly discovered, spiritually-assisted clarity in life. I supported his hopes by telling him that I knew people in their mid-50s who had just received graduate degrees.

The sad part, however, is the inescapable character. He told me that he had been free from drugs for a few years and that he only drank a couple times a month. He had been through extensive PTSD therapy and had sold off his vehicles to cover for some bad investments he had made. I'd estimate that for 98 percent of our talk, he didn't make eye contact, oft looking down at the bar near me or off into the eyes of some distant person sitting to my side. The lack of connection didn't seem out of nervousness. He initiated our conversation and had no problem (trust me, he dominated the talk for most of the two hours) talking about his story. However, he couldn't keep a train of thought and he would tell me stories that I'd already heard minutes before. He was quite cordial and would throw in a nice “Thank you” when I would chime in with the thought that he had misplaced.

I'm pretty sure Brian was permanently fried: Not like the tasty ranch-dipped mushrooms sitting in front of us; more like the decades of pot he had smoked. I had a friend in college that was in a similar predicament, but realized it himself. Years of acid had left him with an inability to memorize the necessary biological material of our curriculum. He tried, but he couldn't concentrate in class and eventually dropped out of the sciences that he loved and pursued his artistic endeavours instead. I worry that Brian will find himself having the same issues. The good news is that he was able to retain enough homeopathic information that he could share much of it with me, but the idea of him making it through four, let alone seven or eight, years of schooling seems unlikely.

Was it the drugs, the military, or just his inherent character? A lifetime of experiences makes the person and a unique selection of experiences made my bar neighbor today.

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By the way, El Toro Brewing Company has 24 taps of their own brews and I was happy with 7 of the 8 I tried.