Cornbread and Yuengling Beer
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
--Henry David Thoreau
On my last night in Norfolk, I went to happy hour for dinner. I ordered a Yuengling on tap and cornbread from the appetizer menu and sat with a book at a high-top table. The part of town we were staying was a college town so the bar was empty when I first arrived at 6:30.
Yuengling is an American beer proudly claiming to be the oldest operating brewery in the US, established in 1829. If you’ve ever lived on the east coast, maybe you’ve had it. You can only find it as far west as Louisiana and Arkansas (in the south), Indiana and all of the states east of those three, except Michigan. I am no beer expert but I love their beer and try to have it when I’m back east. Their traditional lager—which is what was on tap and happy hour at Mojo Bones—is great. It is their flagship beer and an amber lager in the pre-prohibition style. The founder of the brewery David Gottlieb Jüngling anglicized his name to Yuengling when he immigrated from Germany and started the Eagle Brewery in Pottsville, PA in 1929. In 1973, the company changed its name to D.G. Yuengling and Son when Frederick joined David in running the brewery.
There’s something sorefreshing about an icy cold beer after a long day of work. There are many waysto let out a sigh of relief after the tenseness of being “on” and, if you haveneurotic perfectionist tendencies like myself, the stress of wanting everythingto go right and the warm flush that rushes over your body when things start togo awry. So, on this particular day, that was long and rife with navigatinginterpersonal relationships, I was ready for a cold beer, a good book,solitude, and several deep breaths to relax. The first sip really is somethingof magic.
And cornbread. I lovecornbread. Especially the kind with whole grain corn kernels floating in thebread and baked in a skillet, the edges crisping and caramelizing just so. It’san added bonus for my taste buds when the cornbread is drizzled with honey, asthis one was. I enjoyed bites of warm cornbread in between sips of cold beerand read a book and miraculously, the stress of the day washed away.
As I was leaving the college kids began to trickle in. While waiting for my bill I overheard that it was one guy’s 21st birthday and many of his friends were joining him to celebrate. I remembered my own college days and birthdays surrounded by friends and I couldn’t help but feel overcome with joy and nostalgia. I wanted to tell the kids to enjoy it—revel in the time where days consist of attending lectures, studying, celebrating your friends’ birthdays, and lots of sleep. But I didn’t. I watched from a distance with a smile on my face. I paid my bill and walked home to my hotel thinking of all my friends from college and those I’ve lost touch with. When we’re in the moment we don’t think life is ever going to be different in the future so I urge you—and myself—to enjoy each moment as we are in it. Tomorrow everything could change, your best friend could move away, you change jobs, you could lose a loved one, life as you know it, so cherish each moment just as it is.