A dear and wonderful D.C. girlfriend posted this startling statistic on my personal Facebook page: “Just a little tidbit of current trivia: the only state in the union without snow on 1/11/11 is Florida…” I knew, of course, the weather was horrible throughout the southeast. I also knew the horribleness was about to spread to [...]
I know the look. I saw it on my biological father, when I thought he was just tired from all the activity he’d insisted we cram into 48 hours. But he knew. I know that look. I saw it on my customer who’d said he’d lost so much weight because he’d wanted to. I evaluated [...]
…are only slightly exaggerated. (With apologies to Mark Twain.) But as is the case in any small town, this one’s coconut telegraph has been abuzz with all kinds of possibilities and probabilities about my past, present and future. “I heard you are leaving for D.C.” insisted a customer last week at job two. I replied [...]
He was the best of customers until he became one of the worst. He’s always been a pot stirrer, but it never directly affected me, until it did. And when it did, the slop he stirred spilled over the edge and seeped beyond my bar to the outer edges of this very small town. His [...]
“I’m going to your neighborhood this weekend to pay my respects,” said one of my regulars from two of the three bars I still tend. “Really?” I asked, knowing this would be quite a trek for him. “I’m getting on the bus and going there to be alone when I remember,” he nodded. “I don’t [...]
When you are one of seven children in a blended family, everyone is cast in a role repeatedly played out, despite all efforts to break free and re-create oneself. One sister, for example, was the clumsy one, something of which she was reminded every day, which resulted in continual mishaps that ranged from minor–a bruised [...]
“Hi,” he said, way too awake and far too jovial for my morning crowd. “Let me introduce myself.” My regulars grudgingly looked up and silently acknowledged his presence, then immediately turned back to their styrofoam cups of dark coffee. “Can I get you something from the bar?” I asked. “No, no. I’m here to introduce [...]
He was small, but tough. Very tough. And very small. When they needed someone to crawl through unimaginably tight spaces and fix, find or forage for what might keep them all alive another hour, he was their man. He was small and tough and very intelligent. He spoke with authority, certainty and complexity. He didn’t [...]
“You look so familiar,” he said to RG Daughter as she poured his drink. “Really? I grew up here, and I live and work here now that I’m out of school,” RG Daughter said, well into the second hour of a freelance bartending shift. “No, no. Not here. Did you ever live in the Keys? [...]
Add a third place of employment to your daily life, and you soon find that you live in an multi-layered netherworld of “almost” realities–almost feel like I live here; almost wish I could work more shifts there; almost wonder how the more things change, the more things remain the same everywhere. A very short list [...]