Do you remember the beer parties of your youth? Someone would get a keg of beer and he and his guests would all drink themselves silly.

Not so the beer parties of our late middle age. At this party, each guest brought a case of beer. These were lined up in the host's garage. Then we adjourned to the house for three kinds of chili - hot, mild and vegetarian. Meanwhile the host and his kids removed the bottles from the cases, clustering them in front of the now empty boxes.
Then, as the guests finished their dinners, they picked up their empty cases and began filling them, one bottle from each set, until the case was full. We had a case of 24 different kinds of beer and stout to enjoy over the year. Pictured, the guests are happily filling their cases to take out to their cars, while the host stands guard, directing the activity

Then we returned to the house for an evening of games -- poker, hearts, pool, roulette. Beer, chili, gambling. A guy's kind of evening.