We'll drink to that, and here's why

IN A letter to the Abbe Morellet in 1779, Benjamin Franklin mused that the strategic location of the elbow is proof that God desires us to drink wine. After all, had God placed the elbow lower on the arm, our wine glass would never make it all the way to our mouths. Had the elbow been placed higher, our glass would shoot straight past our lips.

"From the actual situation of the elbow," Franklin wrote, "we are enabled to drink at our ease, the glass going directly to the mouth. Let us, then, with glass in hand adore this benevolent wisdom; let us adore and drink!"

Franklin's contention was offered as light-hearted fun. But it does remind us that wine, more than any other beverage, is intimately connected to celebration and worship.