before MA repealed some of the Blue Laws in 2004.
From where I lived the NH border was about 2.5 hours, about 140 miles but gas was 19.9 cents a gallon at the Quincy Oil station the next town over. Five buck would pay for gas with some left over. a six pack was about $1.25.
About 0930 I got a call from one of my running partners. "Hey! Let's go to NH and buy beer!"
Cool! The fact that I was as sick as a dog from Saturday night had nothing to do with it. we were going to NH to buy beer on Sunday. It was flouting a stupid MA law that made it interesting.
The state of NH had and still does have a monopoly on hard liquor sales but smaller stores sold beer. Most NH state liquor stores are on highways and there's one on I-95 just across the border. Back then the MA State police would often have an unmarked car sitting there recording license plate numbers of MA vehicles and would radio them in so the State Police could bust you for smuggling NH beer into MA. It was somewhat of a joke and one time I had been stopped and tossed.
The whole thing was pretty much MA at it's finest. They had detailed the State Police to enforce Sunday beer smuggling. What was funny about it is that local cops along the border probably did this routinely if they had a Sunday off and wanted a beer.
The tossing had been cursory as they were looking for a case or maybe a couple of six-packs. For some reason they didn't look under the spare where there was a GIQ, a Giant Imperial Quart. Still, it scared me into taking other action for future runs.
For you youngsters, a GIQ was the precursor to todays 40. It held 38.4 ounces.
The run that comes to mind was pretty slick. we hadn't been caught and had no intention of spoiling a perfect record. Needless to say we avoided state stores not only because of the State Police parking there and writing down license tag numbers but because we were minors.
The state store checked IDs carefully. Of course this was well before the time of laminated picture IDs. They still issued cards. I had one I had scored at a U. Mass dorm for about $2 that was absolutely perfect. I scuffed it up by carrying it in a separate section of my wallet and actually had a fear of handing it to a cop if I was ever stopped because it was that good.
On top of that in the trunk I had a set of CA license plates scored when someone from CA moved into the neighborhood and had registered their car in MA.
The whole thing wasn't really about the beer itself but telling the state go go to hell. Blue laws were a stupid leftover from about the time of the Pilgrims and had just been carried over. They made no sense and therefore were to be flouted.
Anyway, the run I recall was simple. I drove. I snagged my friend and we took off after a quick refueling at the Quincy station filling the tank with Red Hat, the subgrade that ran pretty good in slant and inline 6 cylinder engines of the time.
We wound through the side roads, grabbed the expressway and started north, connecting to I-95. The rhythm of the road felt good underneath us as the old crapcan Dodge hummed along. There was something about a Slant Six engine. They really were a good engine for the time.
We crossed the state line and shortly we saw the state liquor store and pulled in for a reconnoiter. Business was fairly slow and we only saw a couple of out of state vehicles, only one from MA and the driver's seat was empty. Most likely it was a guy inside buying a jug and his wife was sitting there. She looked fairly old IIRC.
I saw no sign of a MA Statie looking around. We drove out and continued up I-95 for a short piece and got off the Interstate.
In short order we saw a general store, predecessor to today's convenience stores with a Carling Black Label beer neon sign so we went down thee road about a half mile and covered our plates with CA plates, went back to the store and I bought a couple of GIQs and a big bag of ice. He didn't even ask for my license.
The GIQs went into a galvanized steel pail and were covered with ice and wedged into the trunk in a way it would not tip over. There was already a hole in the trunk floor that was a drain from previous mishaps. Back in the day a serviceable automobile could be purchased for $50 or less, sometimes even gotten for free. Knocking a drain in the trunk was no big thing. The next place the car was likely to wind up was the boneyard.
We pulled out of the general store and drove a quarter mile towards the Interstate and stopped. The CA plates went into the trunk and we were off and running for home. Actually it was more of a nice cruise. IIRC it was October and the leaves were turning so for a while we got off the Interstate and enjoyed the fall colors before going back into I-95.
We then retraced our steps and as the sun was setting we enjoyed the fruits of our efforts as we swilled down a GIQ apiece in the early darkness of fall.
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