Admittedly, this is a subject I haven’t thought through very well. But it comes from one of those first memories when you wake up in the morning.
That memory was from when I was about 14 years old, I had a motorcycle which you could get a license to drive at 13 back then. And was ready for a newer and bigger one, so I got a job at the bar next door for the summer, the goal was to start school with a new Hodaka Wombat and a motocross face guard helmet. So the bar cleaning job meant I got paid for that and I sell all the aluminum cans to get the motorcycle. I rode the motorcycle daily to tend to my horse stabled about 6 miles away.
It turned out that the bar job was one of the hardest ones I ever had, I thought I cleaned stables no problem for money, so a bar would be gravy money, but it wasn’t. To this day the smell of cigarette butts in beer cans makes me want to vomit. But the guy that owned the bars sister was the bar keep by day and bartender at night. And she was great full for the help and she helped through it, especially the restrooms part, that was brutal and she knew it so before I did that each day she would have me set at the bar and she would make us a Tom Collins without the whiskey. And we would set at the bar and talk.
I remember talking once about her cleaning the mirrored wall behind the bar, and she told me that the mirrors behind the bar was an important tradition. They were to keep rough guys from fighting and protect the bar maids. She said the abandoned rooms above the bar had mirrors for the same reason, but they were closed off and I never went up there. She said they were there so she could see the bar at all times for safety and guys talking to each other while seeing each other though the mirrors fought less than face to face, that’s why she seated them at the bar instead of at tables.
I sometimes wonder if this piece of glass I’m communicating with isn’t the same in many ways. Perhaps it helps say stuff we wouldn’t feel safe saying otherwise. I wonder the same about cars sometime, would the a hole behind be so tough and brave if he didn’t have a windshield between him and the rest of the drivers around him.
Anyway I’ll try and post some more bar cleaning experience here as thing go. Boss is here, time to work already.
I’m still here.
