Here's looking at a very good hangover

Always, there was strong drink when I was younger. My parents drank, our neighbors drank, and I drank before it was legal.

I could have gone to heaven by the time I was 21 if I could just sit in the Triangle Bar in Minneapolis at 10 in the morning drinking a tap beer for 15 cents, smoking a Lucky Strike (two-bits a pack) and reading the Minneapolis Morning Tribune.

That is the closest to heaven I'll ever get.

Always, every New Year's Day as a young man in my twenties, I was beside myself with a terrible hangover and a throat that felt like I had sucked on a blow torch.

Right then and there, I...