I'm Old Fashioned by Margaret Ullrich - Old Fashioned Recipe

Okay… It’s official.  I’m 65.  I’m a senior citizen.

I’ve been enjoying getting birthday greetings from family and friends.

I’m grateful to have reached this milestone.

Too many of us born in 1950 weren’t so blessed.

Television producers love to mark the anniversaries of events.

This weekend they observed the 45th anniversary of Kent State.

That’s when the Ohio National Guard killed four students during an antiwar rally. 

Sandra Scheuer, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder and Allison Krause were about my age at the time.

They were four college students who never got any older.

They didn’t live to be old enough to vote when Nixon ran again.

By June the National Guard had been called 24 times at 21 campuses in 16 states.

One such campus was that of my own school, Pratt Institute.

I was working my way through college by being a librarian’s assistant.

I fitted working hours in between classes.

That year I qualified to get full time library work during the summer.

A National Guard fellow was stationed in the library.

He seemed to be about my age.

I regularly had to pass him when I went up and down the staircase.
He was armed with a rifle that had a bayonet.
I was usually carrying a stack of books.

He never smiled.

I never made eye contact with him.

Students regarded the National Guard as one would a strange dog.

You just never knew what might set them off.

Nixon had said that college students were bums.
My parents said that if I quit college, I'd be a bum.

Ah… the sixties… fun times.

During a conversation on Facebook comparing movies of the sixties to the movies of today, my friends and I agreed we were old fashioned and missed movies that had more acting and less special effects.

And what’s wrong with being old fashioned?

The song I'm Old Fashioned was written for You Were Never Lovelier.

In the 1942 film Rita Hayworth sang and danced with Fred Astaire.

A few years later, in 1950, the film All About Eve premiered. 

That’s where Margo, at a social gathering, told her friends

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

All About Eve also had dialogue like:

Margo: Encore du champagne.

Waiter: More champagne, Miss Channing?

Margo: That's what I said, bub.

We miss movies with characters - and lines - like that.

Alcoholic drinks seemed to play a prominent role during the fifties and sixties.

Jim Backus in Stanley Kramer's 1963 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World stepped away from the controls of his airplane to mix himself an Old Fashioned.

Don Draper on the series Mad Men, set in the 1960s, usually orders an Old Fashioned.

The drink was well known in the 1960s, but was nearly forgotten by 2007. 

The series brought a renewed interest in this and other classic Cocktails.

A couple of weeks ago I posted the recipes for Champagne Cocktail and Kir Royal.

The ingredients for a Cocktail are similar to those in an Old Fashioned.

The Old Fashioned, developed during the 19th century, was named in the 1880s.

The most popular "old-fashioned" cocktails were made with whiskey, according to a Chicago barman quoted in The Chicago Daily Tribune in 1882.

Let's raise an Old Fashioned to all of us who are honest enough to admit that we are indeed old fashioned!

                        Old Fashioned

Place in an Old Fashioned glass

1 teaspoon sugar

2 dashes bitters

a dash of plain water

Stir until dissolved.

Fill the glass with ice cubes and add

4.5 cL Bourbon or Rye whiskey

Garnish with an orange slice, and a cocktail cherry

About the Full Moon on May 3…

According to the Farmers Almanac:

May’s full Moon is called the Full Flower Moon. 

On May 4 and 5 get outside and see the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower! The best viewing is between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., looking to the southeast. 

The Eta Aquarids get their name because their radiant lies within the constellation Aquarius, near one of the constellation’s brightest stars, Eta Aquarii. 

The nearly-full, waning gibbous Moon may obstruct viewing of these showers.

On May 5 The Moon and Saturn will be very close together. Look to the southeast to see the waning gibbous moon rise first, then Saturn, which will follow the Moon high in the sky. 

See if you can locate the bright, reddish-hued star Antares. 

To find the blue-white star, Spica just remember a little mnemonic device popular among stargazers: “Follow the arc to Arcturus and drive a spike to Spica.” (Find the Big Dipper, and follow the curve of its handle down to Arcturus. From Arcturus, it’s a straight line in the same direction to reach Spica.)

You’ll always find the star Spica in the same place in the sky throughout the month of May every year.

Getting an early start on your garden?

Plant flowers and vegetables that bear crops below ground during the waning moon, from the day the Moon is full to the day it is new.