Congrats to William!

My cousin Mary's son, William, graduated from Oregon State University this week and we had a big family get together at Mary's house last night to celebrate. I don't remember what Will's exact major is called (something like Food & Beverage Science with a minor in Fermentation) but it's basically a degree in beer brewing! I never knew you could major in beer! Lord knows I did my share of beer research in my college days-- if I'd only known I could have been receiving credit for all of the time that I spent at O'Malleys back in the 80's!

At the beginning of the party, Michael went to the bar to make my mother a drink. When he opened the tonic water, the bottle exploded and drenched him head to foot! Mary happened to be standing by at the time and yelled for me to get a towel. We dried him off as best as we could. Well, this experience bonded Mary to Michael and they suddenly became the best of friends. I'm sure the "tonic water incident" will be brought up every time that we get together from now on!

When it came time to open presents, Will sat at the table and was presented with a stack of envelopes and 3 wrapped presents. I thought it looked like a pretty sad display. I remember when I graduated (from high school, anyway), the room was full of gifts. In those days, a dictionary was thought of as the perfect graduation gift for some reason. I remember making several trips back to the store to return the extras. Anyway, William opened the 3 gifts and they were all books: "Beer Bible", "Beer Recipes" and ""Women Like Wine- Men Like Beer". After that was the opening of the cards. Every card contained a check or a gift card of some sort. That kid racked up! One of the checks I saw was for $5000! He received enough money to put a down payment on a house, or maybe even enough to start his own brewery!

P.S. I guess I should mention that William is the great great grandson of former US President William Henry Harrison-- in fact he was named after the President (he is William Henry Harrison IV, I think). He prefers to go by Will, though.