It’s F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Birthday. Born in 1896, this son of the Midwest wrote what is perhaps the quintessential American novel, The Great Gatsby. I don’t have to tell you he liked a drink, he made quite a show of liking a lot of drinks. F. Scott and his cuckoo wife, Zelda were willing to tear up, paint red and shut down as many towns you were willing to put in front of them. They fed on each other’s madness until they became something akin to those fire tornadoes that create their own weather. There was some gossip about the both them being lightweights in the sense it took only a half dozen gin cocktails and a couple bottles of bubbly to light them up, but hey, if you really, really want to be in that fine, high state of mind, it doesn’t always take a lot of fuel, if you know what I mean. And I don’t think maintaining a sober front was ever on their agenda. They just let it all hang out. Top quote: “Sometimes I wish I’d went through those good times stone cold sober so I could remember everything—but then again, if I’d been sober the times probably wouldn’t have been worth remembering.”
