Legal at Last

Note ▼

The Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, thereby ending Prohibition. Write a story or poem about the effect of Prohibition's end on one family. Use DRAMA as one of your genres, and make sure your static item is rated 13+ or higher.

"Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine." "S'okay, lady, I got my own booze."

I'm Canadian but used online sources for research.
https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/prohibition-in-indiana-repeal-real-s...
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/jpQAAOSwe7peof1x/s-l1600.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement_in_the_United_States
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1930s.html

Betty Corinth groaned as she read the headline in the Indianapolis Star: 24 States Are Ready to Sell Liquor.

"How could they? After all our work to save our state from the ravages of liquor, after thirteen years of protecting the public morals, of saving women from men made savage by demon rum, how could those idiots in Congress fail us so terribly?"

She hurled the newspaper into the cold fireplace and grabbed a box of matches, only to throw down the matches and retrieve the newspaper.

"Look! Look!" she waved the paper in George's face, forcing her husband to duck. "It says, 'Liquor Flows Following Repeal'."

"About time," George grunted, then ducked again when she swatted him with the newspaper.

"Open saloons in Nevada! No law at all in some states," she read. "Horrible! I tell you, the Women's Christian Temperance Union will react most forcefully! We will not let this moral rot go unprotested! The Prohibition Party of Indiana will flourish and grow!"

"Gimme that." George made an unsuccessful grab for the paper. "What does it say about here in Indiana?"

"Our pusillanimous state legislators voted to repeal by large majorities in both the House and Senate. Those cretins reversed laws designed to protect young people, lower crime, improve health, and decrease accidents."

"Them laws also led to organized crime, speakeasies, police and political corruption, and kids going blind from drinking moonshine. They made criminals of ordinary guys just for having a flask in their pocket. They was stupid laws in the first place."

"How dare you say that!" She battered him with the paper. "But at least they are clamping down on sales of the vile fluids in this state. No liquor sold on Sundays. Liquor only with meals. You must be seated to be served." She humphed in disgust. "The WCTU and the Prohibition Party will organize to fight this evil."

"Good. You go organize. I'm going out for a drink. For the first time since 1920, a legal drink."