At a Rowan family reunion on our property in the woods in Oregon, everything was going fine until it came time to open some nice wine and it was discovered that the only wine opener had departed with some distant cousins. A nice bottle of wine remained, and thirst ran high. Solutions like breaking the neck or carving out the cork were bandied about, but past experiences had always proven these to have only moderately happy endings--even after straining shards of broken glass out of wine with a cloth, one still can't quite relax into drinking it. Little brother Josh, a boat captain and self-styled engineer, saved the day by sinking a long screw into the cork. After jimmying it back a hair with a chisel, he simply applied elbow grease, very much the way you do with an old fashioned simple screw opener. It takes some strength, and wrapping the screw head in your shirt while you pull saves your skin. But it works.
And that's how you make some Rowans very, very happy. J.R.
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