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| When Tequila was legal in Aramco - 1950 |
...School
was okay and all that but the best part was that Tommy M. lived on Third Street,
directly across from the school. Sometimes Milt and I would loiter at Tommy’s
house after class. He was an excitable kid with an enviable brush-cut that
stood straight up about 3 inches high. Enthusiastic about life, Tommy was the
only kid in camp who had a mini-motorbike and, better yet, his parents weren’t
home during the day.
We’d hang around his room and discuss the world seen
through the eyes of a 9 year old. We talked about the latest war movie, the
dead jackal we saw on the road to Khobar, the kids at school and gross teachers
but mainly we discussed the proven fact that girls were from another galaxy.
Completely mystifying. You wanted so much to amaze them and hear their laughter
but they were working from an entirely different script.
Tommy
had an older brother who never seemed to be around. He always had the latest 45
records, so one day Tommy comes up to me just before the end of class and says,
“You’ve got to hear this.”
“What?”
“You’ve
got to hear it,” he said and then dashed off.
Minutes
later, Milt and I breathlessly knock on Tommy’s door. He opens it with a giant
grin, “Gentlemen, right this way.”
The
air conditioning is humming throughout the house. The shades are drawn as we
silently walk past the classic Aramco thick-bodied maple furniture in the
living room and follow Tommy into his room. He goes over to the dresser and
intently drops the needle on the record player.
And
there it was for the first time in Saudi Arabia!
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