How to Drink A Martini? Simple. Study Roger Sterling.

I'M GOING TO MISS THESE TWO

It's tough to believe that what started as a two-hour season premier seemingly only yesterday will wrap up tonight with the finale of Season 5 of Mad Men. Time did fly. We were having a joy ride. For me it's been one of the best season's ever, Godfather-level in quality of writing, directing and acting...and plot threads. Isn't Lane Pryce another iteration of Fredo? We could debate this point for hours.

Hopefully tonight we'll get one last blast of Don Draper and Roger Sterling out for a cocktail. They are the embodiment of 60s style when they have their martinis and old-fashioneds.  It's all in the way they hold their glasses, sip and quaff. Even Peggy's got it going on, when she knocks one back in the office. Lane gulped his last week, and understandably. 

Believe it or not, back in the day -- including when I went to work in the Time & Life Bulding in 1971 -- offices had bars and the office "secretary" stocked them with one's favorite booze. People did drink in the office and often, at least at Time Inc. Not so much when I got to CBS News, at least not at the Broadcast Center. Occasionally the executive producer of The CBS Evening News would have a beer at his desk during lunch. Otherwise, drinking, and a lot of it, was done outside the office. Always a bottle of wine at lunch, occasionally martinis and other cocktails at lunch, and then drinks after work. I was quite young, and not really drinking yet, but it was impressive to see how much the grown-ups consumed, and still we got the show on the air every night.

Well, anyway, adios Don and Roger, et al. Thank goodness for Netflix streaming but it will be a long lonely summer without a new episode every Sunday.