Under questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford told both sex-crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell (R-AZ) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) that she could be more accurate about the timeline if someone would investigate when Mark Judge worked at Safeway.
Philip Bump at the Washington Post turned to Judge’s book Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk (1997) to do just that. On page 92, Bump found this quote where Judge describes his alcoholism:
It was the summer before senior year, and by now, even though I wasn’t drinking every day, I was completely hooked. Going a week without getting drunk was unthinkable. I was spending between four and seven nights with the gang, either at a party or at O’Rourke’s.
Bump provided another excerpt from Judge’s book that (a) validates Dr. Ford’s assertion that she could have run into Judge at the Safeway and (b) provides context for the range of dates in which the attack might have happened.
Of course, alcoholics also get into all kinds of trouble because of their drinking. When they supersede their own tolerance, they suffer catastrophic hangovers. These can make getting through the day an Olympic event. This was never more evident to me than when, to raise money for football camp, I spent a few weeks working as a bag boy at the local supermarket.
My job was simple. People would leave their grocery baskets against a rail in front of the store, then pull their cars around. I would then sling their groceries in the car, sometimes get a small tip, and then wait for the next car.
It was a nightmare. Invariably I would be hungover — or still drunk — when I got to work at seven in the morning, and I spent most of the first hour just trying to hold myself together.
Judge graduated from high school in 1983, making the summer he worked briefly at Safeway to be the summer of 1982.
That 1982 calendar Kavanaugh released this week? It shows that football camp started on Aug. 22.
As Bump notes (emphasis added):
That window, it’s worth noting, could include July 1, a day on which Kavanaugh’s calendar lists, “Go to Timmy’s for Skis w/ Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi.” What “skis” refers to isn’t clear, but it might be a reference to “brewskis,” a then-popular slang term for beer. “Judge” refers to Mark Judge; “PJ” to Patrick Smyth, who Ford on Thursday again indicated was also at the gathering where she alleges she was assaulted.
Dr. Ford identified Kavanaugh, Judge and PJ as three of the four people she remembered at the gathering.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com