Today, for this week’s Drink of the Week, I thought to do something a little different.
Below is a YouTube video featuring a drink that, although not in the present offering of Sips with Susan, could certainly find its way into a future volume.
Makes two libations, one to share and one for you.
ENJOY! 😉 Drink your “Sips” responsibly! 😂
From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion 🍸
Each week, we’ll share one recipe from Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion. Some will be simple, some a little more involved, but all are meant to be shared — one to enjoy and one to pass along to a friend.
We begin where many of the drinks begin — with Ginger Jazz. Drinks in Sips with Susan feature ginger liqueur — often shown using a familiar commercial bottle. Ginger Jazz is our homemade version, crafted right here at The Gathering Place.
Ginger Jazz is a bright, spicy house liqueur that brings warmth and character to your cocktails. Once made, it quickly becomes a favorite to keep on hand.
Ingredients
2–3 oz fresh ginger root (2 oz = milder | 3 oz = hotter)
1 whole vanilla bean
1 cup orange blossom honey
1 tsp cinnamon (ground)
1 tsp cardamom (ground)
Zest from ½ orange
1⅜ cups water
1⅜ cups V.S.O.P. brandy
¼ cup neutral spirit (190 proof grain alcohol = 95% alcohol) (see note below for substitute)
Directions
Peel ginger and slice thin.
Slice vanilla bean lengthwise.
Add ginger, vanilla bean, water, and honey to a pan and simmer about 20 minutes.
Strain through fine mesh lined with a coffee filter into a bottle.
Allow to mellow 24 hours before use.
Makes approximately 2½ cups of Ginger Jazz.
⚠️ Note on Neutral Spirits
Grain alcohol (190 proof = 95% alcohol) is extremely strong and should never be consumed straight. It is used in small amounts to help extract flavors during infusion.
If neutral spirits are unavailable or not preferred, substitute:
¼ cup mixture made from:
⅛ cup water
⅛ cup brandy
Finished Ginger Jazz averages about 56 proof(28% alcohol) once diluted.
ENJOY! 😉 Use your Ginger Jazz responsibly! 🍸 From Sips with Susan — A Gathering Place Companion
Sips with Susan — Volume 1 A Gathering Place Companion
Some books begin with an outline.
Sips with Susan began with a habit.
Not a business plan. Not a publishing goal.
Just an evening… a glass… and a willingness to try something a little different.
At The Gathering Place, drinks were never just drinks. They were conversation starters. Excuses to sit longer. Reasons to laugh one more time before calling it a night.
It started with a Moscow Mule — changed just enough to make it ours.
Then another variation.
Then another.
Before long, we were doing what creative people often do without realizing it — we were keeping track.
Not because we planned a book… but because we didn’t want to forget.
Names were given. Tweaks were made. Favorites were repeated.
And somewhere along the way, the number quietly reached one hundred.
That’s when the idea finally spoke clearly:
Maybe this isn’t just a collection of drinks. Maybe it’s a collection of moments worth saving.
That thought became Sips with Susan — Volume 1.
Not as a commercial product first — but as a memory preserved.
Today, the book exists. But more importantly, the gathering continues.
If you’d like to explore the finished collection, you can find it through I-Imagine Press, where it is available in both free and paid editions.
And if you’d like to see where the drinks truly live — where new ones are still being created — visit The Gathering Place, where the stories behind the glass are still unfolding.
Because in the end, this was never just about cocktails.
It was about connection.
And connection, like a good drink, is best when shared.
Thomas Wolfe had written a novel and it was posthumously published in 1940. Many had thought it was titled by his editor. On the face of it, the fact that the novel ended up with a different name to the manuscript would imply that we have Wolfe’s editor to thank for the title, but actually it seems that the title was Wolfe’s because, according to Gail Godwin’s introduction to a 2011 reprint of ‘You Can’t Go Home Again,’ Wolfe took the title from a conversation he had with Australian-British journalist Ella Winter who remarked to Wolfe, “don’t you know you can’t go home again?” Wolfe was so taken with the expression that he asked Winter for permission to use the phrase as the title of his book.
The expression is meant- If you try to return to a place from your past it won’t be the same as it was.
you could then…
never leave home
move back home
return to wherever you call home,
but you can’t ever go home again
Home is, where ever you hang your hat, wherever your heart is and with whoever you live with. It’s good to be home again.
Besides Food, What Else Can Be Done on Thanksgiving
The annual Macys Day Thanksgiving Parade – But of Course! Apple Toss– With baskets and red and green apples for points and scoring (make your own rules) Chop Firewood – This will warm your heart and someone’s hearth. What a great gift and exercise too Make a DIY Candle – pour some wax into some old metal piece of junk, add some wicks and there you go. Start a collection of heirloom cast iron skillets to hang on your kitchen wall
Skillet Wall
Take a Drive – Go get lost. Enjoy the adventure! (always have a map and GPS to get un-lost at the end.
Take a Walk – with your dog, a friend, family member or some kindred spirit.
Read a Book – to yourself or to children. Maybe both.
Susan inspired(my wife),Kid friendly Craft– make something turkey-delight with the kiddies
Rake leaves —Throw yourself into a pile or throw some other kids into piles
Look at Family Photos
Gather ‘Round a Firepit – roast some weenies, marshmallows and or S’mores – tell tall tales, get all smoky😂
Collect Food Donations
Be a secret Turkey Dinner Dropper-Offer – Take a whole dinner or the makings ring a doorbell then run away
Gratitude Game — (a paper plate, some glue, rope, fabric, a pushpin, ink pen and letters. Spin the fabric around on the pen until in stops revealing what is underneath. 6 possibilities. Whatever it lands on and whose ever turn it is, tell everyone what you are grateful – say the word and then elaborate a little on that word
Gratitude Game
Make your own Tic Tac Toe game — with stones, pinecones and a piece of wood and stuff.
Homemade Tic-Tac-Toe
Volunteer at a food kitchen
Make a Family Heirloom Table Runner — Take inspiration from television personality and cookbook author Nancy Fuller, whose linen table runner features the signatures of family members. To create your own version, have family members write their names with a disappearing ink pen, and then stitch over the hand-lettering.
Write Letters to Soldiers – those that cannot be home as they are serving us freedom and even those veterans that have served us freedom that may be alone this Thanksgiving
Write Letters to Santa — for yourself or help other children write and send theirs🤣
Interview Family Members – make a journal, a book or a recording
Host Your Own Turkey Trot– run walk or push baby carriages and wagons around the neighborhood. Organize your own version of a family Turkey Trot, whether it’s a one-miler, 5K, or something in between. First turkey across the finish line gets all the leftovers!
Watch a Holiday Classic Movie – Holiday Inn – Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Good Ole Charlie Brown
Football – if you have to? 🤣
Some Open Stores on Thanksgiving(limited Hours- yay)
Whole Foods Kroger Buc-ee’s Harris Teeter Meijer Safeway Rite Aid Walgreen’s CVS Dollar General – In case you want to start your stocking stuffer stuffing early😂 Family Dollar Cabela’s Bass Pro Shops– Besides just shopping, take the whole family for fun and frivolity and maybe even a chance to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what you want for Christmas. I did 8 years ago. 😂
Many closed on Thanksgiving, including Walmart. Good on them!
Restaurants(if you don’t want to cook)
Red Lobster – sure seafood for Thanksgiving, why not! Dunkin Donuts Golden Corral Waffle House – Yay! T.G.I. Fridays Ruby Tuesday Popeye’s Subway Ponderosa Bonanza Applebee’s Sonic I-Hop Bob Evans – “Down on the Farm!” 😂 Cracker Barrel– Even if you don’t eat, or buy a thing, it’s worth just looking around! 👍 Sizzler Denny’s – But of Course!
Others may be open and others closed as they all should be. But if they are open, just go anyway!
OK, and Then There was Food
Even now, it is pretty likely that you already know what you are going to cook. Some don’t like turkey. Some will have ham. Some look forward to leftovers, making new dishes with those leftovers and soup. This year. I’m bringing champagne, some apple sugar spice for champagne flute rims, apples for slices and apple cider. I call these Apple Cider Mimosas. Figure it out and make your own.
Susan (my wife), is bringing batches of her world-class cranberry, orange,🍊 walnuts and white chocolate scones. My sister and I don’t care if they are frozen, served hot, warm or at room temperature. We figure we are good for about 1 every half hour. 🤣 Make your own or ask Susan for her recipe.
Now if you want turkey that everyone will like, do the following. Susan’s dad never liked turkey, but he loved this. I did not like dark meat, but I do with this. As a matter of fact, even though we grew up with turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas, looking back, I never liked any of it. It was just something we did and combined and smothered under with the good stuff like gravy, masked potatoes, dressing and cranberry, to mask the blandness of turkey— white or dark. That’s the way it was for years for me anyway until…until I came up with my Citrus Salt Rub years ago. I will give you the ingredients, but you will have to either buy my book when finished or figure out how to do it on your own.
¼ cup of coarse salt
¼ cup of virgin olive oil
1 whole lemon🍋 cut into halves
zest from the whole lemon above
5 sprigs of fresh whole rosemary
Zest the lemon and combine with 2 sprigs of finely chopped rosemary, olive oil and salt. Mix together.
Pour olive oil onto clean and dried turkey. With hands covered with culinary gloves, coat inside of turkey with the oil too. Place the two lemon haves into the turkey cavity and the remaining 3 sprigs of rosemary.
Coat the outside of turkey with the citrus salt rub. Elevate turkey in pan to contain the salt drippings as it melts. Envelop entire turkey with aluminum foil not just cover, ENVELOP! Cook 350° F until it reaches an internal temperature of 165°F. Raise temp to 425°F, remove foil and allow to brown for about ½ hr. Let rest. Carve. ENJOY!
The secrets to this citrus rub.
Salt tenderizes to the point the turkey though still juicy, falls of the bone. The lemon, oil, and rosemary get the flavor into every part of the turkey, white or dark meat.
Note: be careful if using drippings for gravy or soup etc. as it is really salty
For left over ham, get a sister name Carol Lee to make some Ham Jam Sammiches’!
A Sweet Little Nutcracker Suite history and the Ballet
Plan now to check and see if a local performance of The Nutcracker Suite, by Tchaikovsky will be playing in your area. If you have never seen it, you are in for a real treat. If you have already tasted of it, re-treat yourself and see it again.
The Nutcracker Suite is a sparkly little box of jewels made up of highlights from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet The Nutcracker, which has become a Christmas, staple around the world. Conductor Simon Rattle calls it “one of the great miracles in music.” The ballet’s title comes from a story, The Nutcracker And The Mouse King, written in 1814 by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann.
After the pair had worked together on The Sleeping Beauty, the choreographer Marius Petipa worked with Tchaikovsky to write the music for a new scenario he had chosen and written out, based on a version by Alexandre Dumas of Hoffmann’s story. Yes, Dumas the Frenchman, is the same author that wrote ‘The Count of Monte Crisco’ of which the sandwich is named after. There is no charge for this little extra. 🤣
But, Petipa instructed Tchaikovsky down to the last detail, including the tempo and the number of bars in each section.
Sweet Nutcracker
The Nutcracker, a fairytale ballet in two acts, is centered on a young girl’s Christmas Eve celebration and romantic awakening. She creeps downstairs to play with her favorite present, a nutcracker, which comes to life as a handsome prince who whisks her off to the Land of Sweets. The ballet was first performed on 18 December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. The Nutcracker Suite became instantly popular and was featured in Disney’s — ‘Fantasia’.
Mushroom Dance from Disney Fantasia — 1940
The Nutcracker Suite is a sparkly little box of jewels made up of highlights from Tchaikovsky’s fairy tale ballet The Nutcracker, which has become a Christmas staple around the world: conductor Simon Rattle calls it “one of the great miracles in music.” The ballet’s title comes from a story, The Nutcracker And The Mouse King, written in 1814 by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann. Oh, but there is so much more.
Little Nutcrackers and some of their history
As children we had small nutcrackers. These brightly painted, carved, nut-cracking decorative toys with functional mouths were quality pieces mostly found and made in Germany. But who knew there would one day be a man and his little fledgling company, making them here in the United States? Enter Glenn Crider.
Making Nutcrackers in the USA and Little Ginger Cottages
Crider was a small-town born and raised in Virginia. Who knew that after 30 years in the IT sector of building software for a food service, he would be laid off. At age 54 his prospects were dim so, he plunged headlong into doing his own custom woodworking. He installed tools in his backyard shed and started making wooden circus toys: trains full of animals with bobbing heads and unicycle riders that danced through the air on a wire. TRC (Three Ring Circus), the name of his company, was born. “Then one day at a show I had this little toy soldier, maybe an inch tall,” says Crider. “A customer was looking at that, and she said to me, ‘Can you make a miniature nutcracker for my dollhouse?’ “That’s when the light bulb came on.”💡
So he started to make nutcrackers — designing, constructing them and even making the mechanical jaws, to crack nuts. He made them in all kinds of sizes. But he was still basically a starving artist.
Official U.S. Postage – Photographs of Glenn Crider’s work
It’s OK if you have not heard of Glenn Crider and TRC, but the United States Post Office and the Smithsonian Institute came calling anyway. Stamps were made from designs he made and shipped to them that they photographed and turned into stamps. The Smithsonian Institute houses some of his original designs. Larger versions were commissioned and made for the Nutcracker Suite ballet, for Richmond, VA and other cities.
Birth of ‘Ginger Cottages’
“Among Crider’s nutcrackers is a baker holding a tray of treats including a tiny gingerbread cottage. In 2009, a customer unable to afford the doll asked whether she could just buy the gingerbread house. Using a laser engraver he had purchased to inscribe the company’s name on wooden nutcracker boxes, he began cutting out plywood roofs, floors, and walls and assembling tiny structures that looked like real estate from Santa’s Village. The Ginger Cottage line was born.”
Sweet Nutcracker baker that became the inspiration for ‘Ginger Cottages’
To this day, each ‘Ginger Cottage’ has several surprises including a little gingerbread cookie man hiding somewhere. I wonder if the little girl (now grown up), could ever imagine what was going to happen when she just wanted to buy a little gingerbread house for her dolls? So how did a guy with mechanical skills (woodcarving), use his former training in computer software that laid him off? The game changed in 2010 when Crider discovered he could design his products on a computer then send them to a laser engraver for production. The development grew the business exponentially, Crider said.
‘Santa’s Workshop’ – Ginger Cottage (actual size compared to human hands)
About 15 percent of TRC’s business is custom work, and it grew dramatically. Cracker Barrel came calling and at one point, they were responsible for selling 30% of TRC’s designs. They even commissioned him to make a miniature cottage for ‘Cracker Barrel. I have one of those in my little collection of ‘Ginger Cottages’ that I put on display every Christmas season.
My Little Village with some ‘Ginger Cottages’ and original piano music (look closely and you will see my Cracker Barrel cottage)
Among clients that have ordered site-specific Ginger Cottages or ornaments for their gift shops: Busch Gardens – ‘Santa’s Workshop’ in the amusement park’s German section; Mount Rushmore for the studio where Gutzon Borglum designed the monument; and Colonial Williamsburg (six historical buildings at the living-history museum). “It turns out they have 400 buildings they want done,” says Crider about his Colonial Williamsburg work. “I don’t think I’m going to live long enough.”
TRC Designs eventually had tour busses stopping by to tour the only Nutcracker making company in America at the time. They were the only one that made them with the functional nut-cracking jaws, for a very long time. They had 58 sales representatives in 40 states and worked diligently to pick up the other ten states. They did. Initially, states like Alaska, Texas, Hawaii and South Carolina did not have TRC Designs representatives. But they still shipped to stores and individuals, and collectors everywhere in the USA and all over the world.
In 2019, ‘Old World Old World Christmas’ of Spokane, Washington bought TRC Designs Inc. and its Ginger Cottages collection of wood ornaments. Glenn Crider, the founder and designer of the clever ornaments and figurines, joined the Old World Christmas team and continues to design all Ginger Cottage products.
Glenn Crider ‘Ginger Cottages’ for Old World Christmas
Back to the Sweet Nutcracker Suite
A Tradition in Rochester, NY – Where I first experienced the Nutcracker Suite Ballet just a very short few years ago.
Please note: I am neither sure of the local dates or ticket prices for Rochester, NY, but wherever you may be, find a venue, purchase some seats and go experience for yourself, a Sweet Nutcracker Suite for the holidays. Maybe get started on your own miniature Nutcrackers and ‘Ginger Cottage collections too!
Do yourself a favor, go see a live concert of the Trans Siberia Orchestra. You should award yourself with doing this at least once in your lifetime. If you really like Rock N’ Roll’ or reminded that you do, you will especially appreciate TSO (Trans Siberian Orchestra), as it is known by its three letters.
I am writing this now because it is still possible to grab a couple of seats for a show near you. Just click on the following link and look for “all dates.” – https://www.trans-siberian.com/
What is the Trans Siberian Orchestra. The same website above will answer all these questions and more, but I will give you some perspective as one that has seen a live TSO show.
What really sets them apart is their combination of classical Christmas music and songs with Rock N. Roll quite possibly. Inspiration was no doubt from the first album ever titled a ‘Rock Opera’ from the Band, ‘The Who’ – ‘Tommy’ in 1969. ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ was a commercial and ‘Broadway’ success in 1970. David Bowie’s – ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ in 1972, was another ‘Rock Opera.’ ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ in 1973 was another ‘Rock Opera from Broadway to motion pictures, can likely be found running in some cities somewhere at any time. Each Rock Opera have several things in common as full orchestras, multiple guitars, drums, keyboards, singers and large productions. They each have their own unique calling and attraction to participants. Trans Siberian Orchestra has its own unique brand too. For starters, they use incredible light and sound techniques, fire and lasers along with spellbinding storytelling virtuosity. There is not a bad seat in any auditorium where you may experience a TSO show. Cranes and other elaborate props and sets will bring the musicians to you or at least close.
The other thing I find unique about TSO is they will employ local musicians and singers in every show. It gives a real homey touch especially if there is someone you actually know in your community, in the production.
I just cannot put into words what it is like, witnessing a TSO in person. You will just have to see at least one and experience it yourself. But I will say these few final things. Be prepared to meet people from all walks of life, ages, skin color, intellect economic background, whole families and even some that have been to many, many of these TSO shows for years. The programs are beautiful and the gift store filled with treasures enough for there to be, something for everyone. Finally, have you ever heard the term –
“close enough to feel the heat?” My wife Susan and I set in the balcony of a TSO show several years ago and with blazing flames of fire from the stage, everything they would burst into flames, moments later, we could feel the heat! If you think about $120 bucks for 2 seats is expensive, let me just encourage that a perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime event as a TSO show has so much interest, value and will produce so many memories, $120 is nothing. Besides, if you couples want to do something together, let this be the gif you give each other for Christmas.
How on earth did they come up with the name – ‘Trans Siberian Orchestra’? The original founder of TSO, was Paul O’Neill in 1996. O’Neill said it was inspired by his trip to Russia in the 1980s. He was particularly moved by the Russian province of Siberia, known for its freezing cold climate. One of its most distinctive features is the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is the longest railroad in the world that connects western Russia to the eastern part of Russia which touches Northeast Asia.
“If anyone has ever seen Siberia, it is incredibly beautiful but incredibly harsh and unforgiving as well. The one thing that everyone who lives there has in common that runs across it . . . is the Trans-Siberian Railway,” O’Neill allegedly told Citizen’s Voice in 2011, using the railway as a metaphor for how music connects people across the world. “Life, too, can be incredibly beautiful but also incredibly harsh and unforgiving, and the one thing that we all have in common that runs across it . . . is music. It was a little bit overly philosophical, but it sounded different, and I like the initials, TSO.”
In closing, I will share three videos. Two you have liekly seen before, thesey are all of the Internet, YouTube and etc.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra – Christmas Eve / Sarajevo (Timeless Version) (Official Music Video) [HD]
Wizards of Winter by TSO – Background music for this home with an incredible light show for the holidays
It is officially summer. How apropos would it be for a popular Italian drink, a Limoncello Spritz! With or without alcohol, let’s do this! 👍
Non-alcohol Limoncello Spritz
The traditional Limoncello Spritz is a delightful combination of limoncello, prosecco, and club soda that will transport you to an Italian lemon grove. Add some mint and lemon slices for color, and you’ve got a simple cocktail that is also easy on the eyes. For my non-alcohol and no sugar Limoncello Spritz, just replace the alcohol version (original recipe), with a non-alcohol base for the limoncello, a non-alcohol dry sparkling champagne, club soda and liquid organic Stevia to taste.
Note: view and enlarge the included picture here, of the exact products I used.
Ingredients
5 lemons🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋 (just the peels, make lemonade or something lemony with the rest) 😊
1 L (liter) of alcohol-free vodka (33.81402 ounces – full bottle)
Directions
Zest the lemons 🍋 (with either a vegetable peeler or a paring knife). Be careful that you don’t cut in too deeply, as you don’t want the white bit. Use the rest to make lemonade or something lemony. 🍋😎
Put the zest in a large, clean jar and pour over the non-alcoholic vodka.
Cover with a tightly fitting lid and leave for three weeks, shaking the jar each day!
La Dolce Vita
(Limoncello Spritz, aka a Lemony— “life that is full of pleasure and luxury)🍋
3 ounces (2 jiggers) of either Prosecco (what the actual drink calls for), or dry non-alcohol champagne
2 ounces (1 jigger and less than ½ of a jigger) of limoncello or non-alcohol no sugar limoncello
1 ounce (less than 1 jigger) of club soda
Mix
Fill a wine glass or tumbler ⅔ rds. of the way full of ice🧊
Add drops of liquid organic Stevia (one drop at a time), to desired taste and sweetness
Stir
Garnish with a slice of lemon🍋 and some mint🌿
ENJOY! 😉 Sip your sip responsibly, as if you were on the shores of Portofino, Italy by day or at night, listening to Andrea Bocelli. 😊
McSorley’s Old Ale House circa 1854, still operating in NY City’s East Village in New York state U.S.A.
By the way, the photograph above is real, and really how it would look today. There’s about 200 years of memorabilia on the walls. I suppose one could sit at a table and play cards or you could “belly up to the bar…” But no music or television is ever played, so be ready for some conversation.
The complete line is, “Belly Up to the Bar Boys (or gals).”
That’s the line to include gals, but this was the line. No one seems to know for sure where this came from, but literal or not it is acceptable to mean, “push through”. But it is quite often used with another term of suspected drinking origin, “bottoms up,” when glasses are raised and you toast.Both are familiar from the backdrop of saloons in the movie genre of westerns. In those saloons, the only place you could sit was at a table for those playing cards. The bar was a long piece of raised wood with a flat top. To increase capacity, these early bars did not have stools. So, you either stood up or stood and leaned into and against the bar. Then there is another idea, which can fit here- “First come; first served.” This is my story, and I can “serve” — add to it and embellish as I deem appropriate to make what points I am intending because, I am “first.” 😊
If you were first to arrive at bar in a saloon, you would for certain, stand or lean against the bar, closest to the bartender to pay and be served by the same. One or maybe two or more tenders would handle everyone at the bar. To quicken service and cut down their walking, they were skilled at sliding filled glasses from one end of the bar to a catching hand at the other. People playing cards would often pay for a whole bottle of something in advance, so not have to wade through the crowd to get another drink. If you preferred say whiskey 🥃 over beer 🍺 and were not there to sit at a table to play cards, 🃏 and you did not want to wait for the bartender to service you for another drink or more drinks, you just might say the first time, “Leave the bottle.”
Everyone else just had to wait their turn until the bartender could get to them. Now enter our first line- “Belly up to the bar boys (gals too).” I suppose anyone could say this, but it most likely was the voice of, the bartender. Its basic meaning was and is, “push through.” And as one would “push through” a crowded saloon towards where the tender stood behind the bar, one would likely rub their belly up against other bellies, tying to get to the front of the bar.
Remember that one person at the bar, which was “first come; first serve?” If they were planning on being there for awhile, they certainly didn’t want to give up the best position to be served from. There was one exception— either the drinks would be “on the house” or the “drinks were on you.” (you were buying, at least a round of drinks for everyone.
For everyone involved, this was the most efficient way to serve and to be served. And it was a nice thing to do for others.
So all the above is the background to the dream I awoke from this morning. Oh the place was real to me, as were the faces. I had been there and had been with them in my dream and in reality, many times before.
There was a familiarity and camaraderie. We knew each other, at least by familiar characteristics. By “we knew each other” it is meant that by seeing each other again and again, we knew who we were by our appearance. Perhaps there was a certain hat worn, shirt, jacket, facial hair, hair color, scar, blemish, tattoo or some other identifying marks, which separated us from one another. That’s how we knew and know each other and often on a first name basis. Besides those of us which have come here over the years, there were also those that worked here or used to that drew and draw all of us. There is Dad, the original owner that wore himself out going up and down narrow and loose stairs with cases of liquor and beer on a dolly. Then there is Mom, the other original owner and wife of Dad, in charge of all food— made and served and the greeter of everyone, which come here. This is what we think of them, as our extended Dad and Mom and how we address them. Then there was their son Dave, who inherited the responsibility from his mom and dad, and he used to run this place for many years and died several years ago. His absence left and leaves a hole that could still be seen in each one of our hearts. Still we came. Still we come. Still, we will keep coming.
It seems almost like every year, there is another one of us missing. But as I walk in or any one of us come inside, we acknowledge one another with a wink, a nod, a word or some gesture. We know each other and we uphold those that are no longer here, as if they will always be among us.
We “belly up to the bar…” and buy one another drinks. Sometimes “drinks are on the house.” Sometimes “drinks were onthem.” And sometimes, “drinks were on me.” Our individual draw was to have a drink or some drinks and it does not get any simpler than that. Contrary to popular ideas, most people do not drink alone or come to a saloon or a bar to get drunk.
Maybe, maybe we wanted the entertainment of what is called, ‘The Bar Slide?” Some wanted the regular slide and others, something more unique like the following — 😂🤣
But when we enter in, we acknowledge one another, respect one anther and buy one another drinks because, we share something together and that is the knowledge and the comfort that we are not alone in this life. It gets no more profound than this.
No matter who we are or where we come from, what is the color of our skin, what country we may be from, our accent, whether we are rich or poor, religious or not matters at all. It does not matter however far are the degrees of separation, which separate us. We do not judge. Why do we we keep coming back? There is no other reason to understand, than this.
So, we “belly up to the bar boys” (and gals) because, we are not alone. We show our gratitude and celebrate life by “bottomsup” raising a toast to life, ourselves, to each other and those no longer among us, as if they always are.
So like the neighborhood bar ‘Cheers,’ we go where everyone knows our name. And like the song from the Movie, ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown,’ we just want something to mean something in the often confusing and complicated and meaningless times in our lives. And we want to share them with others and in so doing, make life better even if for only the moment, for all of us and each of us.
This is unwritten. It is unspoken. Generally it is not clearly shown to untrained eyes and hearts. But here is respect and friendship. Here is love we share together and for one another. And we do this as often and for as long as we can because, we know so well that our days have always been numbered. “So, “This round is on me!”
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