There's Nothing Worse than the Wino

My daughter received a voucher in the mail the other day for $100 worth of wine. She usually runs an amazing offer past me to see if it's a scam. I thought back to my father, who would be 102 years old today. The conversation, from the early 1980s, had turned to the Bowery. This was before you needed to pass a rope line to get in. Denizens included defrocked priests, broke lawyers, crooked accountants, shell-shocked vets, and working class joes and janes who lost the battle with the bottle years before. My father said, "There's nothing worse than the wino." I said, "Dad, haven't you heard about this crack cocaine epidemic? It's killing people every day and ruining lives." "Yes," said the old Irishman, "there's nothing worse than the wino." The crack epidemic subsided.  I wonder where the winos went?