"I always cook with wine"

"Sometimes I even add it to the food" W.C. Fields

Chapter 5. Wedding Bells on the Rock
W.C. Fields, a man mostly famous for one thing - a prodigious thirst - would
have made a great Newfie. The first words out of people's mouths when they
find out I'm going to "The Rock" for Dan and Cheryl's wedding have to do
with drinking. The second and third things out of their mouths also have to
do with drinking. Nothing about the breathtaking scenery, the history, the
seafood that's so fresh it's still flopping around on the plate. Nothing
about Signal Hill, the view over St. John's harbor at night, unspoiled
wilderness, beaches, and especially nothing about the ocean.
Just Booze. I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into. I'm a Skydiver
dammit! A group well known for it's drunken excess. But it would seem that
while we pause from our drinking from time to time to jump, Newfies are able
to multitask so they continue to drink as they fish, drill for oil, and do
whatever it is that Newfies do.

I've taken these few days at home between chapters to do laundry, pay bills,
get in some time on my bike, and most importantly, to dry out - to detoxify.
I wasn't at the point where I saw bugs crawling down the walls as the
alcohol left my system, but after 2 1/2 weeks of partying every single night
at various skydiving events and boogies, I could have sent a breathalyzer
into conniptions just by walking past it. That may have been an error in
strategy.

I had begun to wonder if maybe after I got home I should have started
drinking more. Rather than pause and catch my breath, it may have made more
sense to keep up my momentum, to continue to build up my alcohol level and
tolerance for it. Coffee and Baileys with breakfast, Vodka and grapefruit
juice for breakfast, Beer for lunch, early afternoon cocktails, midafternoon
cocktails, tea and Baileys at 4:00, white wine with dinner, liqueurs for
dessert, and red wine as a nightcap.
In other words: to continue to TRAIN. To prepare myself for the next event,
to build my endurance, to be as ready as I can possibly be for the most
frightening combination I have had to deal with yet on this vacation.
A Newfie-Military wedding.

I received an email from John Regan, the buddy I took for a tandem back at
the beginning of my vacation. He summed it up perfectly.
"There's a reason why you took bronze at nationals. There's a reason why
you beat a team with matching suits. There's a reason why you can get
together with a group of people that you don't really know all that well and
pull a successful 10 way out of your asses and show up the other
teams.............TRAINING.
Which brings me to the real subject of this e-mail. You're still in
training. Take it from a pro in this particular field. The reason why my
in-laws call me a newfie instead of a mainlander is training. It took me
three whole days of hardcore, no hold's barred drinking to stay up later
than Penny's dad. God bless his soul, that man ruined me. It finally took
half a bottle of Glenfiddich to finish him off after we killed 6 liters of
homebrew (7.8%) and two bottles of homemade wine, raspberry and blackberry.
This is just a friendly reminder that the words "drink responsibly" are
never uttered on the rock."

I'm getting picked up at St. Johns airport by Casey and we'll be going
directly to the wedding rehearsal, followed by the rehearsal dinner, and
then Dan is taking the boys in the wedding party to some place called George
Street. Since it will be Dan's "Last Night of Freedom", he will probably
want to cut loose a little, and I'm told George Street has a good selection
of fine drinking establishments. And not so fine drinking establishments.
Plus a bunch of seedy bars, dumps, and hole in the wall dives. It should
suit our purposes perfectly. If it comes to it there are enough boys in the
wedding party that we should be able to carry Dan to the altar if necessary.

I'm wondering. At a newfie wedding, do they use Screech, instead of wine?