First, a requiem for Dave Brandon:
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On to business. In the early 1930s, America suffered through her worst economic depression. Budgets were tight and unemployment was high. "Hoovervilles" - shanty towns - popped up all along the east coast, full of workers and their families trying to dig themselves out. America teetered on the bring of collapse.
There's a lot of complicated reasons for why we eventually pulled ourselves out of the Great Depression, and none are really worth explaining on a blog dedicated to football and beer. But one of the most comforting moments in an otherwise bleak four-year period in our history came when our president, the former governor of New York and a man crippled by a disease history would soon eradicate, brought a microphone into the Oval Office and just started talking.
Back then, presidents addressed the nation in grand speeches, via train tours, or over important, official broadcasts. But for the first time, Franklin Roosevelt talked to a nation that sorely needed some help. For Teddy, it was the bully pulpit - for Franklin, it was the crackle of Marconi's magnum opus. Those broadcast waves helped a president explain the most sweeping political and social overhauls in our nation's history to a confused and often scared public.
And they worked. Families around the country felt more connected and less isolated to the kindly man in the Oval Office who would go on to serve most of three more terms and lead America through economic recovery and a World War.
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Fast forward to this fall. Michigan's season sucks. The athletic department is in turmoil. And it's cold and shitty outside. There's a whole lotta people wearing highlighter yellow maize that could use a drink. This week, hearken back to one of MnB's favorite beers - a doozy out of 21st Amendment in San Francisco called Fireside Chat.
It'll warm you right up and make you wish you had a big ol' radio deck in your living room instead of the tube of despair. It's spicy and dark and a cool 7.9% ABV. And it comes in cute little cans. While Michigan's in a shootout with a terrible Indiana Hoosiers team, you can just sit back and enjoy the liquid comfort that is Fireside Chat.
Drink up, Michigan Faithful, and enjoy the Indiana game. Until next week, Cheers, Michigan Faithful!