Tuesday, July 15, 2014

History puts a saint in every dream

My grandfather had a tavern in Scranton, PA, aptly named Sloat’s Tavern. He quit the business and retired on his stock exchange winnings, now evaporated, before I was born, but the tavern is part of the family lore. My father has told many stories about sweeping up there after school.

I remember at the bar at his own home my grandfather had these tall aluminum tumblers in metallic colors like purple and teal, and whatever you drank out of those tasted tall and metallic and cold whether it was cold or not. He kept a gold one in the bathroom for rinsing your mouth.

My grandfather was a Highball man who used shakers and crushed ice and was never in a bad mood. His bar was outfitted with stools, stirrers, a mounted bottle opener and packets of powdered Whiskey Sour mix. My sister Lisa and I used to play ‘bar’ there, you know, it was a like playing ‘house.’

Song of the day: Time 

2 comments:

Billy Joe said...

My father owned bars and night clubs. We lived in some of them, in an upstairs apartment or one time he turned a house into a bar and night club. We lived in a part of the house. This particular place had a sunken bar and the decor's main color was purple. It was called the Orchid Lounge. I learned a lot of old songs as a child b/c my father had an early version of karaoke. A projector displayed the lyrics to songs on a screen and everyone would sing along. Some many other stories.

ken said...

There must be more bar connections among us than we think. My great-grandfather had one in downtown Hartford and made a mint. His eldest son (my great-uncle) took care of that after great-grandpa's death, burning the alcohol profits into so many speculative market vapors.

Some taverns are cool places. They also serve as recurring tropes in literature. They dot the colonial landscape in the 13 colonies....

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