Fifteen years is enough.

I’m retiring my favorite beer glass.

It was purchased off the shelf at the Prior department store in Kosice, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) in September, 1991, and taken to my room at the “hospital hotel,” where I resided during my months teaching English. Fortunately, an enterprising privatized neighborhood grocery was within easy walking distance, and I carried returnable bottles of Czech and Slovak lager back to the pad on a daily basis.

The mug got a workout and survived the journey home in 1992, taking up service as the preferred receptacle of choice within the walls of the five houses I’ve lived since, and throughout the lifespan of my business.

It now will occupy display space with another heirloom, the 1/3 liter Plzensky Prazdroj (Pilsner Urquell) glass given to me by a taxi driver in 1987 after we completed a session at the now demolished pivnice across the street from the brewery in Plzen.

That’s another story.