Growing Up With Hamm's (Yah Sure, You Betcha)

Last night, while wandering Ballard with X, we passed a sign that said something to the affect of "Stop in and have a tater-tot hotdish with your ice cold beer." Intrigued, we had to go inside. I'm not a huge bar fan, but I've got a new favorite bar in Seattle.

I had deep-fried cheese curds and a Hamm's.

It doesn't hurt that Zayda Buddy's is a pizzeria, either. Most noteworthy was the Minnesotan Mexican pizza with ground beef, white onions, mozzarella, and shredded cabbage. Thankfully I'm vegetarian.

The music playing was classic rock, accented by Midwestern classics that normally never get played outside places like Rennville or Kandiyohi counties. The decor was 80's Minnesotan small town bar chic - brick walls punctuated by cheesy light-up signs advertising Grainbelt and Hamm's, and many posters telling us that the secret is the water.

Now, here's where I want to talk about Hamm's for a minute. It's crappy. It's far too pale - not at all the type of beer I generally enjoy (I'm a guiness fan). But at a buck-fifty, it was by far the cheapest bar-or-restaurant beer I've seen in Seattle. The second I saw it on the menu, a song ran through my head. I couldn't resist. I started to weep that this was still embedded in my memory... (though I don't know if my tears were from nostalgia or horror)

From the Land of Sky Blue Waters,
~waters!~
Comes the beer refreshing,
Hamm's the beer refreshing.
Hamm's the beer refreshing.
Hamm's.

I recalled all those commercials of my youth, inappropriately marketed to children via a cartoon bear. Those commercials ran nearly every break during Thundarr the Barbarian.

I thought I'd never tasted it - while I certainly hadn't in my adult life, but there was no denying the familiarity of that flavor once my order arrived. Someone in Minnesota had given me a sip or two of that as a child. Either that, or I'd licked the TV screen.

Here's a deplorable little Hamm's commercial that not only features a cartoon for the kiddies, it also has a glowing testimonial from Rick Marshall of Land of the Lost, and it teaches us that cutting down trees is fun.

It's a wonder I'm not any more fucked in the head, growing up with that. You'd think that would lead to a stalwart member of the beer-swilling and dutiful consumer-class, not a leftist conspiracy theorist who's never had a hangover.