“Did you ever do acid?” My dad asked.
John just stopped for a moment mid-sip of his wine. His eyes gleamed knowingly, but he didn’t answer.
From the low clamor of the pub, Lin continued the conversation in another direction, and we never got an answer. Of course, the answer had been given in his eyes.
“Yea, I hear you used to be a bit of a troublemaker,” John told me.
“He still is!” My dad laughed.
“When I was younger we used to hate America, because of the [Vietnam] war,” John told us. “We used to throw stones at the American embassy.”
We had come to London with plans to rent a car and drive to Scotland, with an ambition to hit some whiskey distilleries. So once our plans were settled, I thought it would be nice to visit John and Lin, some of my British family members, in London.
And boy was that a good decision!
My great-aunt, and replacement grandma, Doris had given me their information along with
some items of import to our family history to give to John.
After a lovely dinner we had a nightcap at the bar, and that was the end of our time with John and Lin in London. The rest of our time in London was spent doing walkabouts through the historic monuments and under the undying gaze of Big Ben. We also got piss-drunk with a Scouse guy from Liverpool with some interesting political views.
“The queen’s been dead for two years, and I’ve been celebrating ever since,” he drunkenly declared. “Fuck the queen!”
And that’s London for ya…
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