Be glad you’re not on the wagon

September 5th, 2007

For many people, the Labour Day weekend officially marks the end of summer; a time to put away the short pants and tank tops, and generally clean up your act. Other people prefer to ignore the subtle signs of fall. They wear shorts and bare feet until it snows, barbecue in the dark, and couldn’t clean up their act if you dipped them in detergent and hit them with a pressure washer.

I have one old friend who says fall arrives with the brrr months (Septemberrr, Octoberrr, etc.) and marks the occasion each year by switching from beer, over to any drink that doesn’t require lugging a cooler around. One year, he even went so far as to say he was “on the wagon”, using the old term to suggest he was avoiding the demon alcohol altogether for an unspecified length of time.

After recently hearing the story of the origin of the expression “on the wagon”, I told him I had no intentions of ever being caught on the wagon, or even near it, ever again. It seems, in turn of the century Ireland, when a condemned man had been sentenced to be hanged, he would be led to his place of execution in a horse drawn wagon. The man would stand in the wagon, with the hangman leading the horse. They would customarily stop at the local pub on the way to the place of execution, where the condemned man was permitted to drink one last pint. He would have his last pint before his death, with the hangman standing next to him at the bar. In true human compassion, the bartender was required to say, “Can I give him another?” to which the hangman would reply: “No. He’s on the wagon.”

When you take into consideration a story like that, it makes perfect sense to want to be off, rather than on, that wagon. No one says you have to abuse that privilege, but who in their right mind would ever want to be caught on the wagon. You only get one stop, for crying out loud.

There are those who have no respect for being off the wagon. These people should be avoided, like anyone trying to sell you a velvet painting, or the loudest person in a bus terminal, or anyone who says they love clarinet music. For some people, a tumble off the wagon takes them right back to the behaviours that put them on it in the first place.

One of the best cinematic examples of a person falling off the wagon, is the film “Leaving Las Vegas”. The chilling tale depicts Nicholas Cage falling so hard it rattles him. It is a compelling story, and not all that bad of a film, actually. It did win Cage the Academy Award, after all. Apparently, it isn’t easy to play sloshed. Lee Marvin won an Oscar for his work as a drunk in Cat Ballou, Burt Young did an expert job in the Rocky movies, and Dean Martin made a career of being off the wagon. Bad girl Lindsay Lohan is on her way, but still has a lot of work do to yet.

On the wagon or off, dragging a cooler or a corkscrew, or staring a pressure washer in the face; what is important is that, with summer’s light fading, falling leaves and cool night air, we can take the time to slow down and enjoy a good look at things—and maybe even slow that wagon ride down, whichever direction it happens to be headed.