Going to a honest to God Irish wake tonight:

A long time patron and friend of mine. Col Martin Egan USMC (Ret) passed away last week and my good friend and former boss is throwing a real Irish wake for him tonight. How is it a real Irish wake? Well, for one, my former boss is Irish (truly Irish, not diaspora) as are most of the people attending. Marty was an ornery old cuss whose favorite line to pretty women in their 20's sitting near him was "Miss, can you help me to the bathroom? My doctor says I shouldn't lift anything big and heavy at my age." And when you've successfully flown 275 combat missions over North Vietnam as a fighter pilot and survived, I think you're allowed to do that as much as you want.

Anyway. We'll have a good time remembering him. My question for you is how drunk do you think I should expect to be by the time I'm supposed to be going home?

I'm sure you've heard the song "The Night Paddy Murphy Died" by Great Big Sea.  Get that drunk.

The order of the night turned out to be lots of Guinness, a bit of Whisky and a few ciders.

No singing, no music, but good times none the less. Heard some great stories about Marty that I'd never heard before. Apparently his F4 got shot up pretty bad and he had to ditch it in the jungle a few miles away from the airbase. He's wearing his flight suit, helmet, and mask and has his parachute gathered up under his arm and walks the few miles to the front gate of the base at which point some Sergeant says he can't let him on base unless he sees his ID card. Apparently a full flight suit with your name emblazoned on the breast, helmet, oxygen mask, and parachute, as well as the fact that he was a 5'10" white guy from Virginia wasn't enough to establish that he wasn't VC or NVA.......