05/19/2026
This is how my dad got his PBR.
Some memories don’t come back as pictures.
They come back as sounds. Smells. Summer heat. Bottle caps popping. The clanging of old glass PBR bottles in a cardboard case riding in the cab of my dad’s 1972 Ford pickup — Ole Blue — as he shifted that granny gear on the way home from Hoosier Avenue Liquor on a Friday after work.
That was how Dad got his beer back then. A case of Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles, the kind you returned for the deposit before picking up the next round. Nothing fancy. Nothing trendy. Just working-man beer at the end of a working-man week.
My dad drank PBR the same way his dad — my papaw — did before him.
I remember one early evening in July. The sun was still up, and Dad and Papaw had been out back hanging rafters on the pole barn the old way — by hand, by grit, and by a little ingenuity. No fancy equipment. Just sweat, know-how, and men who could figure things out because they had to.
It felt like a simple time, although I know now it probably didn’t feel simple to him. The oil embargo had people worried. Layoffs were a real concern. So Dad, with help from my grandfather, was building that pole barn on the property. The plan was simple: if the plant slowed down or let him go, he’d have a place to work as a diesel and heavy machinery mechanic and keep supporting his family.
Dad and Papaw both had their own way of drinking PBR, too — with a pickle spear dropped right down in the bottle. That was my first taste of beer, on a hot July evening, with the smell of grass, lumber, sweat, and a hard day’s work still hanging in the air.
They were sitting under a shade tree in the backyard when Dad reached into a styrofoam cooler, pulled out a PBR, and popped the top. He smiled and asked if I wanted a sip.
It was just a sip.
And hey, we were Gen X kids — back then, that wasn’t exactly abnormal.
That was my dad.
No frills.
Never needed much.
Never tried to impress anybody.
Just did what had to be done.
I try all kinds of beers now, and I like several. But I still drink PBR. And yes — I still drop a pickle spear in one from time to time.
Because every time I pop a top, I get that sensory recall.
Glass bottles clanging in that cardboard case.
A shade tree in July.
My dad.
My papaw.
Some things stick with you.
PBR Pabst Blue Ribbon just happens to be one of mine.
What about you ... what's your sensory story ??
