Bad Habits I miss!

I miss drinking. I miss the delicious taste of whisky mixed with 7-Up. I miss the taste of an ice cold bottle of Beck’s Dark on a hot day. Or even on a cold day. I miss the taste of beer. I miss the buzz I got from a drink or two. I miss the camaraderie of being a regular at my favorite bar, you know, the “Cheers” atmosphere where “everybody knows your name.” I miss all that. Chatting with the barmaid who had the big boobs, “these boobs sell a lot of whisky,” she always told me. She was right. I bought a lot of booze from her. Cute barmaids are better than ugly ones. I miss chatting with the other regulars, the guys and gals who spent a lot of time trying to beat the state at the lottery machines, feeding bill after bill into the money slot and losing.

I miss the bar food, onion rings, mozzarella cheese sticks, and boneless wings with ranch sauce. I miss the egg rolls too, and the last bowl of chili from the pot on the steam-table. I miss my regular spot at the end of the bar, next to the restrooms. I miss the country tunes on the juke box. I miss listening to Dave Dudley singing his version of trucking songs. But it is more than just the buzz I got from the booze that I miss and the familiarity of all those faces I knew. Bar regulars become a sort of loose knit family that you’re glad to see. “Hi Don, good to see you. You want your usual? How did your shift at work go today?”

The early morning drinkers, the ones that show up at 7am opening time are mostly the graveyard shift workers getting a drink or two before going home to bed, playing the Keno tickets hoping to get enough to pay for their drinks. “Hi there, Bob” or “Al” or “Joe,” I would say, acknowledging some of the “family” who came there ahead of me. Some of the early shift drinkers were not working people, but just alcoholics wishing the bar opened earlier. Getting drunk for them is how their day always starts. And usually ends.

The last bar where I was a regular was Sam’s Hideaway on SE 162nd avenue near Stark. It was close to home. Right next door to my apartment at the time, so I never had to worry about drinking and driving. It was just one of many bars where I was a regular over the years. Sam’s patrons were a homogeneous group of blue collar workers, white, black and Hispanic, just another collection of folks looking for a job, more or less. Most would leave Sam’s with alcohol on their breath and a stumble in their step. Not the best way to go job hunting. But they were a kind of family, the only family I had at the time it turned out.

Bars and taverns are the hub of social life for many and people will generally socialize where alcohol is available. Everyone wants to be a “regular” at some watering hole where the regulars all know your name. The patrons who hang out all day in taverns, sipping beer and eating hot links are never employed it seems. Their kids are at school, (they hope) their wife is at work and their real family is sitting on the bar stool next to them shelling pistachios and complaining about the government. I too complain about the government. “Who elects these morons?” I would say. Together we wonder if voting ever makes any difference? We decide it probably doesn’t matter and promise next time we won't bother.

The next shifts of drinkers are the people who stop for a drink or two after a hard day’s work. Lured by the prospect of happy-hour and cheaper drinks they find their usual bar stool and order up with a smile of anticipation. Happy hour is a great marketing idea. Entice patrons in the door with cheap prices knowing they will decide to have more drinks after the initial buzz loosens both their tongues and the bills in their wallet. What the hell, they decide, a couple more can’t hurt, and the bills I have to pay at home aren’t really that important after all. And can I get an order of onion rings too, please? Two hours later I wobble out the door pausing to wave goodbye to all my friends. “See you guys later,” I promise, wishing I could stay. But the remainder of my common sense and the diminishing contents of my wallet prevail.

The next shifts of drinkers are the late shift guys and gals. They are there for the evening’s conversations with the other regulars, the music on the juke box and the buzz that provides them with the bravado they need to approach that “sort of” cute gal on the end stool;the one that pretends she’s really not looking for a “hook up.” But it is loneliness, the lack of having someone of your own to hug and hold that is often central to the social aspect of bar stool sitting. Loneliness drives the need to mingle, to be with others and alcohol removes the natural awkwardness of socially awkward people. 

What I have offered here is a composite of every bar scene I’ve encountered in many countries and various cities. As a young man stationed in Germany for twenty six months with the US Navy I managed to get drunk in nearly every country in Europe. Although the languages may be different in Europe, the human need to socialize remains the same. As a lifelong police officer living in Portland Oregon after I was discharged from the Navy, alcohol was the way I relaxed at home. It was the way all off-duty police officers relaxed from the crazy intensity of police work.

Lonely people congregate where alcohol is served. And often an empty bottle of booze is the only flotation device buoying up those lost in the river  of life, a river rushing ever more rapidly towards the rocky rapids of reality that can either make or break you.

But being blessed with a long life, my lifetime of bad habits has caught up with me. Mild cirrhosis of the liver and kidney problems prevent me from drinking today. I finally took my doctor’s advice and put alcohol away in the dusty reaches of my memory. But at times I take those memories out and dust them off, give them a little polish and sit back and reflect. Bad habits for sure, but I miss them!

By Don DuPay