December 29, 2003
THE CROW BAR
As I was staying with my in-laws on Wilmington Island Sunday, and as I was on best behavior, and as I was bored shitless, I decided to drive down the road to the Chinaman (aka Woo's Tru-Value Hardware) to buy a couple of sponge rubber balls and a broomstick, in order to teach my nephews the Sacrament of Half-Rubber. The lads are only 4 and 6, but it's best to teach them failure and pain at an early age. It's called Old School Education.
As it happened my brother-in-law insisted on going with me. I figured he was into half-rubber, but as soon as we got in the truck he said "Fuck Woo's. It's closed. I saw on the way in. Let's do some nostalgia and hit the back door of the Crow Bar."
To those unfamiliar with Savannah in general, or Wilmington Island in particular, Ellie and Grant's Crow Bar is an institution of a dive. My father used to slip in the back door of the Crow Bar 30 years ago. I used to slip in the back door of the Crow Bar 20 years ago.
Why the back door? Just Because. Originally when I couldn't peddle my college education around town for a suit and tie job in 1980 I took a job as a cabinetmaker next door to the Bar. I loved the work, at least the woodworking aspect of it, but the pay was for shit, there was no future there, and the homeys I worked with were a special breed of back island trash. It was akin to Hunter Thompson hanging with the Hell's Angels. They accepted me, but I knew in the end I would get stomped.
I got a job in the steamship business after about 18 months, but in the meantime I built cabinets. Very nice custom work, I may add. I'd do it today as a sideline but I don't have the space or the tools. I got spoiled on other peoples' hardware.
So the drill was we'd slip out of the cabinet shop a couple of times a day and go to the back door of the Crow Bar, slip in for a shot and a beer, and go back to work. Dangerous stuff when you work around power tools. I saw one putz lose a thumb on a table saw, and another get a nailgun nail drilled up the left cheek of his ass by his buddy. It was an accident, actually, but you don't play grab-ass with power tools after a shot and a beer.
So what did I have Sunday? I really didn't want to go back to the in-laws' with a buzz, so I just nursed one Budweiser. Until my bro brought us two Chilly Crowns apiece. "For old times' sake," he said.
For Old Times' Sake, indeed.
Those bastards were tasty.