A bar where ‘Cool Hand Luke’ is cool
I walked down to my local bar the other day to have a few beers
and see what was on TV, since my own set has been broken for about
a month now. I left home at 12:30 p.m. and got to the Antlers at
1:15 p.m. It used to take me 20 minutes. I guess I’m getting
old.
It was lunchtime. There was a big crowd. I sat down at the edge
of the bar. The bartender’s name was John. He had light brown hair
and a dark goatee. I had been in there before, but he didn’t know
my name. He was the youngest guy there next to me. I ordered a Fire
Rock Pale Ale from the Kona Brewing Company.
A bar where ‘Cool Hand Luke’ is cool
I walked down to my local bar the other day to have a few beers and see what was on TV, since my own set has been broken for about a month now. I left home at 12:30 p.m. and got to the Antlers at 1:15 p.m. It used to take me 20 minutes. I guess I’m getting old.
It was lunchtime. There was a big crowd. I sat down at the edge of the bar. The bartender’s name was John. He had light brown hair and a dark goatee. I had been in there before, but he didn’t know my name. He was the youngest guy there next to me. I ordered a Fire Rock Pale Ale from the Kona Brewing Company.
The guy next to me asked if I had ever been to the Kona Brewing Company. He had a gray beard and crutches.
“No,” I said. “Where is it?”
“Kona,”he said. And that was that.
They also had Budweiser, Miller Lite, Sierra Nevada and Stella Artois. There were bottles of Jameson, Jaegermeister and a bunch of tequilas.
John put the lunch menu in front of me. They had burgers, a tuna sandwich and linguica. I ordered a Philly cheese steak with french fries.
Once I had my beer in front of me I spun around on my stool so I could watch TV. Three sets were on. The one over the entrance door was showing “Spin City,” a ’90s sitcom that was pretty funny before Michael J. Fox left due to Parkinson’s disease. There was gymnastics on the second TV and the third was tuned into the Spike channel. The show was one of those “Shocking TV” or “Real Life Police Chases Caught On Tape” shows. A red truck was being chased by a cop car. The sound was down. I decided to watch “Spin City.”
A few stools down from me a woman was arguing with some guy named Jerry. Jerry wore a camouflage ball cap, jeans and a white T-shirt. He had a cell phone clipped to his belt. The woman wore white pants and a white shirt. From the looks of her, I guessed this wasn’t her first time in a bar.
The woman had hit and killed a falcon with her car. Jerry told her that it was an endangered species and she would go to jail. She said it was an accident. Then she said it was a baby falcon. Jerry asked how big it was. She said she didn’t know because it was in two pieces.
“You should have put it back together,” he told her. Jerry ordered another drink. I watched John make it. It looked like vodka and 7-Up. I turned back to the TV.
On “Spin City” Michael J. Fox was dating a girl who was a magician. He was in some sort of big box. She was putting swords through it. On the second TV an Asian guy was doing the pommel horse. On Spike, a cop was chasing down a bad guy.
“He’ll never catch him,” someone said.
“Of course he will or they wouldn’t show it on TV,” John said.
At the table behind me, two older guys were talking about gas prices. Then they talked about Hillary Clinton. Then they moved on to rice rationing. I tried to tune them out so I could finish watching “Spin City.” Jerry mentioned that in the old days at last call the bar would have paper cups so you could pour your drink in them and take it home.
John brought me my cheese steak. It had lots of cheese and lots of steak. The guy with the crutches said, “They really pile it on.”
I nodded in agreement and took a bite. I ordered another beer, this time a Miller Lite. John turned on the TV next to me.
He turned it to the American Movie Channel and I recognized the movie right away. So did two other guys. “Cool Hand Luke,” they murmured. I saw Paul Newman and George Kennedy with shovels. Kennedy won an Oscar for his role in this movie. Behind him was the guy who played the father on “The Waltons.”
I decided I liked hanging out in a bar where people knew “Cool Hand Luke.” Maybe being without a TV wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
I ordered a gin and tonic and stayed awhile.
