Mother Necessity:  The Beer Cooler

by Smiley Jim Clawson

The Beer Cooler

I invented the beer cooler, at least as far as the team I played for in Brussels, Belgium believed.  For several months work had me living in Brussels.  I found a British club to play for and had quite a bit of fun.  They played all their matches on Sunday which I found odd.  I found lots of things odd over there but those will make for other stories.  After we beat the hell out of a French side I was standing alone on the sideline with pretty much nothing to do till the B & C sides were finished.  I packed up my kit bag, headed to my car, and emptied the contents of the bag into the car.  I caught a bus to a local tavern.  I don't know the name of the bar but because that part of BE speaks dutch and all the names were 40 to 80 characters long with repeating vowels.  I asked the bartender to fill a garbage bag with ice and beer (hoegarten- my 2nd favorite beer, tenents velvet is my favorite).  It took me about 20 minutes to get through the language barrier.  I ended up going behind the bar myself and showing the guy money, then loading it up myself.   You would've thought I was diagraming the formulas for nuclear fussion with the look of this guys face.  He finally was able to mutter out something to the effect of, what a good idea.  I hopped on the return bus and made it to the field before the 3rd side started.  I gently put my makeshift cooler on the ground and started offering beers to my teammates. 

Most of the guys were English, they'd never thought of this concept, keeping beers cold by putting them in a container with ice.  According to the English, they are the most educated people on the planet, how could this simple concept elude them.  I explained this is one of the many reasons why America is much better than their country.  Being the only one with beer at the field, they reluctantly bowed their heads, agreed with me, then helped me drink my beer.  From that game on people would put trashbags in just about every size container and bring it to the field.  The last game I was there I blew all their minds by liberating a super big size trash can from work and filling it with beer & ice before the A game so i'd have beer as soon as I came off. 

A few weeks ago they were up to 3 or 4 big trash barrels of ice and beer a game.  If I ever return to their city again I'll one up them and bring a keg from the bar.  We're light years in front of them as far as drinking goes.