I found the following handwritten note among the papers of my father,Oscar True Babcock: "John McLoughlin, brother of Rosanna, workedfor Robert Morris a wealthy merchant (liquor dealer). He never drank.Later he went into business for himself, then after not working withliquor he began to drink -- quit, went to farming. His son John ranthe farm and hated liquor so he formed a society of people whowouldn't touch liquor. They couldn't get farm help because theywouldn't furnish liquor. Was it the first temperance society inAmerica? When ill with typhoid fever he drank a whole pan of milkand died -- couldn't have water." Another of those frustratinglyenigmatic notes my father left behind. Somewhere in that welter ofmixed metaphors there is probably a great truth or moral strugglingdesperately to escape -- but what it may be, I doubt I'll ever learn.Perhaps, "If the whiskey don't kill you, you'll live 'till you die."-- Bryce Babcock