"Here's to the three birds! May you always have a bird on the table, a bird in your glass and an eagle in your pocket."

I first heard that toast when I was very young from an elderly neighbor. It was a toast from her childhood in the early 1920s. The toast her mother and uncles always used. Already something of an antique in Jazz Age America. The bird in the glass -- Wild Turkey a.k.a. whisky -- in those days of Prohibition was frankly illegal. The bird in the pocket -- the beautiful $20 American Eagle gold piece --was fast receding into memory -- and what it meant to be an Irish / Scottish / Catholic / Canadian / American come south to work the railroads in the timber camps of the Pacific Northwest was also fast receding into memory. 

Nevertheless, the toast spoke to a universal desire: companionship, good food, a break from the daily grind, money in your pocket. And so today I wish you all the three birds. May you always have a bird on the table, a bird in your glass and an eagle in your pocket.

Very best wishes for the holiday and the New Year.

Sarah Nagle