The Atheists' Picnic!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:        The Atheists' Picnic...

Every pivotal moment in life begins with an epiphany, a cathartic event.  Is that the same as a revelation...  I guess so?!  Or maybe not, but sometimes fortune shines, or it doesn't.  Depends on the individual, the objective and the specific overarching demon.      

Like finding a $20 bill or a rare coin in the gutter on an overcast morning, a pleasant discovery can replace gloom with a nugget of hopefulness.  In my / our GeezerHood, we found an exit, a means of escape from the vise of addiction, a program we could embrace.  AA was not an option for us.  We could not, would not surrender our personal responsibility to a "higher power," as if to announce to our weaknesses that we were powerless, thus permitted to drop back in a murky pond of toxic semi-consciousness, or blackout, each time the seductive lure of "spirits" beckoned.

There happened to be a chapter at a particular church, its own traditions or form of theocracy, its religious or spiritual concepts hitherto unknown to us, or at least not to me!  The church symbolized by a Question Mark, not a cross, burning or mounted symbolically, or a star or thin towers with enclosures protected by parapets.  

Had anyone ever heard of it before?  That new and different method...  I certainly hadn't.  Secular Organization for Sobriety (SOS), a new idea, at least to us, an idea that proclaimed one's personal power over addiction.  Extraordinary.  For us it worked, as for many others, we soon discovered, to our satisfaction.  Kindred spirits occupied chairs and tables, as opposed to the potable kind of spirits!  

(SOS included a concept known as Rational Recovery; an excellent book described its process and its effectiveness for combatting addiction.  Many in our group embraced its rationale and its well-reasoned path to sobriety.)  

Nothing's perfect.  We had to absorb a brand new paradigm.  And we had to listen to a number of, in fact too many insipid "drunk-a-logues," as well as, admittedly, a number of fascinating tales of deep depression, hopelessness, ultimate victory over demons, abysmal failures as well.

One of our new SOS companions was a mynah bird with a broken echo in his beak.  "I can drink pop; I can drink coffee and tea; I can drink lemonade..." as if repeatedly, each weekly meeting, attempting to convince himself that there was great joy in drinking non-alcoholic beverages.  And each week we heard the same litany of soft drinks he could

actually ingest without becoming inebriated.  We felt sorry for the chap.  He was something of a bromide, indulging in a sort of self-hypnosis.

Another of our group members was addicted to booze and cannabis, his brain addled by his twin addition that occurred over too many years, too much, too many days and nights of anesthetizing himself with forbidden or damaging substances.  His chatter was a stream of somewhat unconscious drivel, a prattle that often took a different direction, a new thread.   Each time someone in the group ended a sentence with a particular word, that word sent him on an entirely different course of nonsense.  Sad.  Sometimes so sad it was, in a way, pitifully comic, if one could actually jump aboard his crazed train of illogic, if one could find humor in his convoluted monologues.  We often did, while at the same time feeling badly for the poor chap.  

And then the young woman who announced each session she would never abandon her fifth of vodka a day habit, even if it meant losing everything, her marriage, her children, what remained of a working brain, her livelihood, her life...  Nothing mattered but the vodka, the perpetual buzz, the numbing elixir that shut down her mind and her pain, an inexorable devil that she had no words to describe or define.

One of our number called another of us an "amateur" in the hard-drinking culture.  He once said, "I wish they'd invent a pill that would allow me to have just one or two drinks, and then stop!"  

The woman responded, "I wouldn't take such a pill for the sake of one or two drinks.  Not worth it."  

"Then you're just an amateur..."  That made her angry, and she shot back at him with a suitable reply.

"That kind of thinking is dangerously inappropriate for impressionable young people within ear shot.  You're giving them an excuse to have a drink or two, as if they can do so without falling back into excess, deeper into addiction, diving back into alcohol abuse possibly without ever looking back!" 

Enough of the serious part of group support and therapy!  One of our members -- he having joined a multiple-addition group that we too joined at some point on our recovery journey -- was a loud, self-proclaimed atheist.  He wanted every one of us to embrace atheism.  He was an atheist proselytizer!  More frenzied and passionate than any door-to-door preaching lunatic -- Witness, Priest, Monk, Rabbi, Muslim, Mormon, Hare Krishnan, Buddhist, Church Lady, Whirling Dervish...  

He was continuously after all of us to come to the Atheists' Picnic.  He and his fellow converts and rabid proselytizers were frequently organizing Atheists' Picnics, reserving enormous swaths of parkland in and around the city.  "We always serve nice food," he said, "and lots of stuff to drink...  nothing alcoholic, of course, but yummy and fruity with vibrant colors, bubbly even..."  

We were not swayed.  We did not convert, possibly because some or many of us were already in that camp.  For the two of us, we were content to practice our own form of religion or non-religion, or spirituality, or the lack thereof...  No one's business but our own.  I hasten to add that we respect and admire all forms of religion, not-religion, spirituality and non-spirituality (if there are such terms!)      

Fearing the lack of alcoholic stimulants would kill our senses of humor, we once attended a multiple-addiction party, at which we were asked by our hostess not to tell her friends where we had met.  Ignoring her, we kept inventing ridiculous therapy and support groups and sharing them loudly with her friends as they arrived at the party.  One fellow entered, smiling broadly like a toothy dental commercial, and promptly dropped an entire platter of nuts.  On our hands and knees recovering the precious salted, mixed nuts, I announced to the latest arrivals:  "Oh, um...  Beryl, yes...  How we know her?  We met at a fear-of-standing-erect at parties group..."  

Possibly it's akin to riding a bicycle.  Maybe you never really lose your sense of humor, or "sense of silly," even if they take away your booze, your stout and porter, your former reason for living,  that of gleefully stumbling, belching and dribbling, assuming your daily role as the perennial buffoon in a galaxy of cocktail lounges and gin joints!  (Oh, that was really funny...  uh, wasn't it?  Wha-did-dat guy say again?...)  

Special Dedications:   To theists and atheists and all who struggle with addiction and demons, but who do their darn-dest every day to combat the imps and devils that dwell within their / our minds, hearts and souls!  Thank You, readers and devotees, for your kind consideration and indulgence, or at least your lack of scorn!!      

Humbly Submitted  06-15-23 -- Joel K.

 

  

  

         

  

They Grow Up too fast... Now Even the Grandkids Want the Stories!

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:                    They Grow Up too Fast...   

                    Now Even the Grandkids Want the Stories!!

We're driving along cheerfully, taking the newly-turned teenaged (13) grandson to his soccer camp.  Suddenly he demands, from the back seat, just behind SweetHeart, his "Baba."  "Baba," he begins in a loud and gleeful voice, "tell me how Papa proposed to you."  He, the grandson, is already expecting a risible result, beaming in anticipation!

SweetHeart dives into the tale, and with a significant degree of relish.  "At some point, when we were dating, maybe for about 10 months or so into what Papa likes to call our 'courtship,' I can't

Map of Colorado...  Showing Alamosa!

remember exactly when, Papa tells me he's interested in considering the possibility of buying a small, weekly newspaper in Alamosa, Colorado.  'I'd like you to come with me,' he says."

"Well," SweetHeart / Baba continuing the story, feigning indignation as she did at the time of the actual event, "if you think for one moment I'm going to put in for a transfer to Denver (she flew for United Air Lines, and had recently re-located her flight base from Los Angeles to Chicago!), drop everything and follow you all over the country, you're very much mistaken. But then Papa replied, 'I wouldn't expect you to do so out of wedlock.'  That's Papa for you...  Captain Romance!" 

"I mean," SweetHeart / Baba continued, "who uses the word 'wedlock'?!"  

Seany, our grandson, was immediately consumed with laughter.  "Yeah, 'Captain Romance,' " he

Photo of Seany when he was very young, and
Papa was feeding him an ice cream cone.  
One of our favorite pix...  Now he's 13!!

echoed amid peals of laughter.  "Tell me another story about Papa."

"Hmmm," Baba began, "when Papa was first going to meet my entire family, we were all going out for dinner.  Papa had the habit of wearing the same suit, or outfit, for each day of the workweek.  This was a Friday.  His 'Friday suit' was actually pretty decent...  sort of a light-colored suit with brown flecks, dark brown shirt and a nubby tan tie.  His best outfit.  I was happy, anticipating he'd show up in that very outfit.  I went to the door, answering his ring.  'What happened to your Friday suit,' I asked, shocked and disappointed at the way he looked, certain I'd be embarrassed when my family got a load of him.  He was wearing the Friday suit, but his shirt was a pattern of blue, peach  and white stripes, and he was wearing a brown tie with gold lions!  It was awful.  He said his 'Friday shirt' was in the wash."

Seany's laughing, enjoying the tale.  "I should have had 'Garanimals,' " says Papa. 

"What's that?" Seany asks.  "I've never heard of that...  Garanimals?!"  

Baba answers, "It was a kind of kids' clothing from the 70s or 80s.  Shirts and pants had tags that identified which went with which, so that kids could pick out their own outfits, and their moms would know everything would match.  Little kids could dress themselves, choose their own clothes

Wondering if anyone remembers "Garanimals"?

for the day."

"Tell me another funny Papa story," Seany requests.

"Our first date!" Baba begins, remembering in a flash of intuition.  "On one occasion, and it wasn't the first time, I met Papa at a bar.  He came in with no money in his pockets, left with a snoot full and 65 cents...   My friend, Donna -- who liked Papa and had a friendship with him --  told me that I'd probably only ever meet Papa in bars, and he'd never call.  On that occasion, however, Papa said he had to make a trip to Denver, and he'd call me when he got back.  He did.  He called me and asked me on a date, to go to a Marquette Men's basketball game.  We spent the first half of the game with Papa looking for a free parking space. We made it for the second half.   'Captain Cheapskate.'

"Papa's and my friend, Pat, when I told him about that episode, said, 'You better get used to it.' " 

Seany laughed through the telling of the "date story," and as it came to an end, asked, "Who won

the basketball game?"  

Baba answered, "I think Papa did.  He saved five bucks in parking fees."  We arrived at Mount Mary University, site of Seany's soccer camp.  He was still smiling and chuckling as he exited the vehicle, grabbing his soccer sack and water bottle as he did.  "You know, we're picking you up.  See you at three.  We love you." Baba concluded, as she and Papa waved a goodbye.  

  

(Special Note of Dedication:    To Seany, in honor of his 13th Birthday, and a very special occasion that he'll experience in November of 2020.  We love you to bits!!  -- Baba and Papa!)

Humbly Submitted, 08-15-2020 -- Joel  K.

  

 

 

  

 

  

  

Murder Mystery... Chapter Four... "A Final Assault"!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    A Possible Murder Mystery...  Just Trying it Out, Sort of...

Chapter Four — Mavis and Leonard - A Final Assault!

       Leonard, day bar manager of the famous and highly successful Beech Tree and Basswood Inn, arrived early to perform his usual duties.  It was a Friday, and Leonard habitually preferred a bit of a head start on this typically very busy day at the end of the workweek.  He set up the back bar in his usual manner, confident, or perhaps merely cautiously hopeful, the day would be uneventful.

About 45 minutes following Leonard’s arrival, Jack Roskov, barback and now “assistant chief daytime bartender” as well, reported to work.  Jack had been on the job for a period, at the time, of about three months.  He’d proved himself competent, and the staff grew to accept him as a valued member of the service crew.  “Hey Leonard, how you doing?  I’ll just start filling the coolers, unless you have something else for me to do.” 

“Go to it,” Leonard said.  “I’m OK here.  Got things well in hand.”

Jack said, “Hey, wait a second.  Is that a clip-on black tie you’re wearing?  Did you take some good advice, you know, in case of a Mavis incident?”

“No chance of that,” said Leonard.  “It’s just easier.  I mean, this type of tie.  And besides, I understand she’s on some sort of holiday travel, at least that’s what I hear from a friend of hers who lives in my neighborhood.  I think, I hope she’s had enough of her crazy tirades.  I think she’s accepted things.  I mean, the divorce.  She won’t show up.  I sort of promised Mr. Cruickshank we’ve seen the last of Mavis and her explosive antics!”

If indeed she had been away on holiday, it must have ended, or maybe it never actually occurred.  Just before noon, Mavis stumbled in, already well on her way to an extravagant state of inebriation.  

“Christ, she’s drunk as a boiled owl,” said Jack in a whisper.  “Hello, Mrs. Hoaglund.  How are we today?”

“Shut yer goddamned button and get the hell out of my way,” she shouted and snarled at the approaching Jack.  She didn’t ask for a drink.  No sane bartender would have served her one in any case.  

“Mavis,” Leonard began preemptively, “please just be calm.  Let’s talk. Please don’t behave in an unseemly manner.  There are customers at the bar, and…” 

“You can stick your ‘unseemly’ right up your ass,” spat Mavis, her eyes blazing.  She immediately climbed up on the bar rail as a stupefied Leonard stared in disbelief.  Too quick for him to react or move away, Mavis grabbed hold of Leonard’s tie.  Yanking and releasing the clip-on from Leonard’s collar, the unexpected action sent her backward.  She nearly fell as she slipped off the bar rail, but managed to maintain her balance, a remarkable feat in her condition.

“You rotten goddamned bassoon,” she screamed at the hapless Leonard.  Reacting more quickly than Jack thought possible for someone in her boozy condition, she practically leapt back onto the bar rail. 

“I think she meant to say, ‘baboon’,” said Jack in a quiet voice, directing the comment to a man seated at the bar, one of several shocked patrons.  The man’s eyes became enormous white poker chips, his mouth agape, as he stared transfixed at the crazy unfolding mayhem.

“I heard that, you wormy little shit!”  Mavis aimed the comment at Jack, like a poison dart.  The bar patron stared back and forth, at Mavis, then at Jack, then back to Leonard as if viewing a tennis match that had deteriorated into a violent melee, like an athletic contest turned into a one-sided battle, an assault laced with deadly venom.   
    

Above illustrations shown to depict
the difference between a bassoon
and a baboon!  

Unfortunately for Leonard, the cored and peeled lemons and sliced limes remained on the cutting board easily within her reach.  Within moments, Leonard seemed to morph into a rigid statue on which a flock of angry pigeons had unleashed its collective discharge, one of pulpy splatter, juice and seeds.  The assault, as had occurred a few times previously, was over in moments, and Mavis stormed from the barroom.  As she exited in a drunken, serpentine path, she passed by Jack delivering an elbow to his chest, sending him reeling into the aforementioned bar patron.  The man seemed not to notice, still goggle-eyed in a kind of shocked fascination.

Watching her departure with just his eyes pointed leftward, Leonard came back to himself, no longer the immoveable petrified statue.  “I thought she was out of town,” he said somewhat obliquely, still a bit stiff with astonishment.  He picked up a few bar towels, and headed for the employee wash and locker room.  

Another of the patrons, this man a bit less stupefied compared to the fellow with the poker-chip eyeballs, chuckled nervously.  “I take it that wasn’t staged for our amusement,” he said to no one in particular.  “Holy flaming shit, what a crazy damn spectacle!  Insane!  Holy flaming shit,” he repeated  The entire scene, witnessed from the onset, or eventually in process, by a number of bar and hotel staffers, was reported dutifully to Mr. Cruikshank, the general manager, by “Florence of Arabia” the salad chef.  For reasons never really made clear to Jack or his co-staffers, Florence disliked Leonard with a certain intensity.

“Unrequited love?” Jack mused, when he learned that Florence had informed on Leonard. “Poor old Leonard,” Jack murmured to himself.  “What the hell will happen now?”   
     

Later that same day, just before his day shift ended, Leonard was summoned to the office of the general manager.  Cruikshank’s discomfort was obvious to Leonard as he entered the GM’s office.  Cruikshank was, as usual, immaculately attired and groomed, his thin blond hair so neatly in place as to seem almost artificially attached to his head by a make-up professional.  He wore, as he normally did, a lightly colored suit and matching necktie.  The GM was a pleasant-

looking man.  His oval face was pale and relatively unlined, blue eyed and with a straight nose and wide mouth.  His features worked well to fashion a handsome composite.  He was thin and always presented himself with excellent posture, as if disciplined by a Marine Corps drill sergeant.  

Cruikshank stiffened as if coming to attention, and peered at Leonard over half-moon spectacles.  “Lenny,” he began, “please sit down.  I’m sorry to say this won’t be an easy conversation.  We’ve been friends a long time.”  And then came the inevitable “however” part.  “I simply cannot have this fine hotel, it’s reputation, sullied by the kind of… well, irrational and thoroughly uncomfortable…. I mean, of course, for our clientele…. behavior of your ex-wife, by Mavis.  I believe the best thing to do, at this juncture, is for you to move on.  That is, for you to find a different place to tend bar.  I can help you with that.  As I’m sure you know, I know a good many people in the hospitality business.  I can help you find a new position quickly.  Perhaps just until she, Mavis, can put the matter of your divorce at rest.  Until she finds peace.  I just don’t know what else we can do.  Perhaps at some point you can come back here to work.  I know you’re an intelligent person, Lenny.  I hope you can understand and accept my position in this matter.”

“Of course,” said Leonard.  “I get it, I understand perfectly.  I know you’ve been more than merely tolerant, Herbie.  If you can just give me a week or so, I’ll get things in order.  I’ll find a different job.  I hear they’re looking for an experienced man at the Red Goose.  You probably do too, but I know the owner.  I’ll talk to him; I’ll give him a call this evening.”  Leonard and Cruikshank shook hands and parted amicably.  

Needing a friend of a different sort, Leonard asked Jack to join him after work at the

nearby Margarita Port, a bar they both frequented, sometimes before but mainly after they had finished their day shifts.  The place had the look of a reasonably authentic, if posh, Mexican cantina.  

  “I’ve been asked to leave the Inn,” Leonard began.  “I’m sure it’s for the best.  Perhaps she won’t find me, Mavis I mean, and maybe if and when she does, that insane anger of hers will have ended."

“I wish I could have helped,” said Jack.  “Wish I could have prevented this latest episode.”

“Glad you didn’t do anything to interfere.  She’s nuts.  She would have sued you, taken you to court.  No.  Best to let the thing run its course.”

“Her law suit would have netted her a bag of salted peanuts, not much else,” said Jack.  Both men laughed heartedly, and ordered another round of margaritas.  They chatted amiably into the early evening about adventures and misadventures, relationships both sweet and tragic.  The conversation wandered on, each consuming an impressive number of the salt-rimmed conconctions as their moods softened, laughter and cheer supplanting gloom and apprehension.

   

************************************

Some 30 days or so passed uneventfully following Leonard’s departure from the Beech Tree and Basswood Inn.  Leonard was suitably ensconced at the Red Goose tavern.  The regulars had come to accept him, to enjoy his sense of humor and his easygoing manner.  The Red Goose was located in a kind of rural setting in suburban Redmond, Washington, a good distance from his former place of employment.  A kind of architectural oddity, the building that housed the Red Goose sported large, plate glass windows on either side of its main entrance.  Both windows and doorway sat at street level.  The configuration proved to be a significant misfortune for Leonard and the bar’s owner, one Charley Stackpole, a friendly man in his mid-sixties and a career-long saloon keeper. 

Early one very pleasant mid-autumn evening, a late model Buick purposely drove into and nearly through one of the plate glass windows, causing it to shatter violently with a terrific noise that sent a full house of bar patrons at the Red Goose into near panic.  The car was driven by Mavis.  She exited the vehicle, cautiously in spite of her apparent drunkenness, walked  

Not the exact one, but a good likeness
of the Buick Mavis drove!

unsteadily to the bar, and began to launch her fists, glassware and anything else she could find at and toward the hapless Leonard, breaking a fine piece of mirror on the antique back bar as the “final great assault” ensued.  It was like an unexpected firefight in a brutal mayhem film, one that had the effect of propelling viewers out of their seats and causing every palm to tingle and sweat.

A couple of patrons, both nicely inebriated, tried in vain to grab hold of Mavis toward the end of this latest mad onslaught.  Ever the clever eel, slippery and elusive, Mavis managed to dodge and weave her way from the bar and through the space that was once a proud plate glass window and jump into her car with extraordinary speed and dexterity.  The tires squealed as

she backed away from the wreckage — tires astonishingly undamaged by a million shards of broken glass.  She spun the auto away in a neat half-circle as if she were a well-practiced stunt driver, wrenched the Buick into drive and sped away into the night.  A bar-full of patrons watched her exit with a kind of dazed admiration. 

       Two of the Red Goose’s more colorful habitués were brothers — King Saul and Kid Rufus — the origin of their names a mystery to fellow patrons.  Magnificently bewhiskered, neither had seen a razor in years.  “That was some fancy driving,” said King Saul to his brother.  “I believe I drive better when I’m drunk.”

“Can’t wait to hear you tell that to some trooper if you get stopped drivin’ home from the Goose, wobblin’ all over the road.”  They both chuckled.

“Hold on there,” said King Saul to his brother after a long moment.  “I think you done drove us here today in your pickup?”  They stared at one another, each in turn scratching his chin whiskers.

“I hope she kept up the insurance payments on the Buick,” said Leonard with surprising calm.  “Good lord,” he exclaimed.  “I’d better call Charley.  How in the hell do I explain this disaster.  And how in the hell did Mavis figure out where I’m working.  I did my damnedest to keep it secret!  My god,” he said, addressing no one in particular, “the woman must be psychic...  crazy as a headless yard bird too!” 

Humbly Submitted 11-21-18 -- Joel K.

The Drinking Culture! Or, Fine Pubs and Their Pickling Potions!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      The Drinking Culture!...    or, maybe...  "Pickles" at the Gate!   

“Where the hell's ‘Lare the Hair' ?” I bellowed within the private confines of my skull, silent rage and  impatience growing inside my brain like a bulbous nodule of fatty tissue, my face a plate of purple beets.  I was seething.  He was seriously late.  I hated to be anything but on time for a Seattle Totems hockey match, though they were doing poorly in the 1970 season. 

Didn’t matter.  I was hooked; we were both hooked on the "Totes."  “So where the hell is he?” I asked aloud to Arnold, the bartender on duty at The 400 Club.  Arnold shrugged. He murmured, "Huh?"
  

The tavern’s name was a small mystery that, long before, may have had something to do with its location or address (but of no relevance at the time!), perhaps the number of drunkards thrown out and banned for life?!  No one really knew, and there was no one in the place who had the answer, nor was there an obvious clue to provide one on its walls or from those wobbling on its vinyl-padded stools.

I dumped down a couple more bottles of Rainier beer, paced nervously, played the punch boards.  At some point in the anxious and impatient waiting game, I walked to the men’s room where a smallish, high window was the only “periscope” through which to view the tavern’s parking lot.  I climbed onto the commode, the sole elevation from which to see the lot and its contents, searching for Lare’s “midnight blue” Pontiac.  I slipped off the rim of the bowl, my right foot twisting badly as it and I fell into the bowl, plunging into the cold water of the toilet.  I hollered in agony.

I hoped no one in the crowded bar had heard my pitiful screech of pain, something like the ear-piecing cry of a particular owl -- so named for its strident sound -- streaking from its perch in pursuit of a hapless rodent.  I hobbled to the bar.  “Arnold, gimme a bottle of Olympia this time.  I feel like I fell off a precipice.  I got a ‘soaker’ when I hit bottom.” Arnold was unlike the stereotypical bartender. He lacked the quality of attentive listening!

  

“Hey,” said Arnold, at some point coming round to the patrons' side of the bar to prop up a drunkard, then turning his quizzical gaze to me, “Why’s there a puddle under your foot?”  The “Hair” finally showed up, wearing a sheepish and apologetic grin. 
"We've missed the whole damn first period," I complained. "Why so late?! What if we missed Claudie DuFour catching a puck in his mouth?!"

*******************************

My own dear father collected them!  Saloons, taverns, bars, gin joints, whatever one's preferred nomenclature might be!  He had a catalog of them, his favorites and those of secondary appeal, given what they charged for a large beer (the chaser!) and a shot of brandy, and whether or not they had a cribbage board.  As I look back in time from the high mountains of wizened geezerhood -- soberly these days -- I freely admit I inherited his fondness for them. I had my own collection!  Sometimes when I'm daydreaming in my office -- on extremely rare occasions, of course! -- I recall certain brilliant episodes of tavern life, glorious

"Yeah, that's the ticket!  Back
me up Five Deep!  Hey, where
are my shots?"  

memories of the Boozing Culture! 

There's a village in the "Lakes Country" west of our major metropolis.  Okauchee -- with its nearby waters of the same name -- boasted, like so many small towns in Wisconsin, a saloon for every 10 residents, or so it seemed! Westphal's was our favorite. Always the joint resounded with brilliant conversation, and equally brilliant patrons.  
"Hey, Stinky, what's it again you do fer work?"

"I'm a drunkard."

"Is the pay any good?"

"Yo, Durwood, I like that sweater.  Argyle comes alive on youse! I could, maybe, sometime borrow it, if I ever, like, have a date??!"

"Anybody got any dope to sell? What?... I'm talking too loud?!"

"Hey Bry! Why must I always pay for my drinks? Am I not your duly-invited guest here? I mean, when you come to my house for cocktails, social and cultural interaction, do I ask you to pay for your drinks?"

During my days living in the Seattle, Washington area, my friend and fellow beverage host, Leonard, was frequently assaulted by his estranged wife, Mavis.  She'd sit at the bar, become extravagantly inebriated and then pelt him with the lemons he'd just cored.  She often grabbed him by his tie and punched his face.  Poor beleaguered Leonard.  Such elegant times! The boozing life at its zenith, its finest! Leonard disappeared after Mavis drove into the plate glass window at his last-known saloon job. As if it were a regular occurrence -- glass shards cascading onto the hood, twinkling like cheap baubles -- she calmly got out of her car, entered the joint and bombarded Leonard with lemons! (We don't know how she found him! But I believe at that point Leonard had already begun to wear clip-on neckties! Mavis was furious! No one's heard from Leonard since 1973!)

University life! Just like scenes from The Student Prince, eh?! The Ardmore, The Gym, The Vogue... Such sophistication! Entire mornings and afternoons spent in glorious intoxication. "Hey, you through with classes for the day already?"

"What?...  Oh, uh... I must check my schedule...  What time's Epistemology?"

Might be an interior shot of The
Ardmore, possibly the Vogue!
Doesn't really matter.  They
were both on or near the old
Marquette U. campus, an image of
which is pictured below...  (Suitably,
kind of tipsy in the mid-day sun!!)

My great friend, Pat, and I used to perform grand "hook-a-thons," meaning road trips on which we'd try to stop at every saloon we almost passed. Wonderful times, I think?? Prior to enlisting in the military he and I secured a case of cheap beer -- in quart bottles, 6 for each of us -- and consumed the entire ocean of suds at a drive-in movie theater. Police arrived at 2:30AM, roused us from our peaceful if unconscious state and hauled us to the town jail, and there we remained incarcerated until a parent came to spring us. Brilliant!  Oh yeah, and "flaming shots," particularly memorable at two different joints on Burleigh Street; often I resembled "Beppo the Human Torch" -- a brightly illuminated by-product of those highly intelligent episodes, hair and whiskers gorgeously ablaze!

There's a two-pronged point to all this nonsense! (At least I think there is?!): 

1.)  In the "drinking culture" -- the local bar as poor persons' club -- we hang with kindred souls, some tortured, some merely perpetually drunk, we regard ourselves and our companions as terribly amusing, wonderfully funny! Aren't we?  Are we merely forcing laughter and trying too hard to entertain and be entertained, to forget, to blend in, or to "be somebody"!

Not the "905" we actually consumed,
but, you know, quarts is quarts! (Please
see Paragraph 10 above for reference!)

2.)  When we've either quit entirely or cut way down on our consumption of alcoholic spirits, are we permitted to look back on those earlier times of life and recall them with laughter, with actual joy in our hearts, as cherished events worth remembering?

How the hell would I know? On the other foot, Sure! Why not?! I mean, I think we can't simply ignore or try to forget our days of magnificent inebriation, when we were stein-hoisting, falling-down members of the Drinking Set! That was simply us, or that was me, in a different sphere of consciousness, in younger times, in a previous "compartment" of life's richly eclectic trajectory! Aint it? Sure, they may not have been our finest hours, but they helped to mold us into who and what we are today, to construct and form our characters, to solidify and validate our attitudes and values! (True! Some of us never actually make the transition... !)  

Oh yeah, one more bright memory in the great panoply of boozing adventures...   Red Top, Muskie Don and I succeeded in being thrown out of Hooligans Super Bar, that was before it became gentrified! It was a beautifully planned affair. We were running drunk until it got yellow out, went to an all-night market and bought a half-gallon of Tutti-Frutti ice cream. We offered the frozen confection to Hooligan's early-morning opening bartender, and ordered him to make us each a cream drink. We decided to call our creation a "Tutti-Frutti Pink Gin Sissy." "Oh yeah," one of us insisted, "Don't forget the paper umbrellas and the fruity-tooty garnish!" 

"Get the hell out of here now," the bartender bellowed, as he reached for his Louisville Slugger, his red-blotched eyes blazing with ire!! We stumbled out, but with exemplary dignity!!

A couple of concluding thoughts! I have to state quite honestly, we truly enjoyed the Drinking Life while it lasted. It was our inheritance, in a manner of speaking. SweetHeart has often said, "Alcohol abuse doesn't run in our families, it gallops," borrowing a line from a famous movie comedy. Just as honestly, having now parted company from strong drink, we find our lives happier, more manageable and, in a sense, more secure in many different ways. We have no intention, here, of denigrating the Drinking Set and those who do imbibe alcoholic beverages. It's just not for us at this juncture. Many if not most of our

frequent companions drink. No problem for them, nor for us...  it's just a different beverage choice, and almost always in sensible moderation.  
So raise your glasses, friends and fellow lovers of fine literature (and the sweet nectar of your own choosing!), and drink a toast to great saloons and the great friends who frequently or occasionally populate them. Or, if the coffee house is your "social club" or gathering place of choice, raise your mugs! Thank You!

Humbly Submitted, 04-19-17 -- Joel K.

Questions:

What's your favorite tavern or bar or saloon?

What's your favorite beer?

Your favorite mixed or blended drink?

What's your favorite or funniest memory of tavern life?
What's your favorite coffee house, and its location?