Bars and Beyond

Back on May 20th I wrote about the trailer park bar and grill and while I enjoyed writing the piece, it has bugged me that I did not have a picture to go with the story. Well wonder no more, because I drove out there and took a picture of the place and here it is in real time.

The link above will take you back to the original story, in case you need to refresh your memory. I know I had to and I wrote the story.

Now I am thinking I actually need to make a trip out there and go inside to experience the place. I think I ought to pack the old .38 special with me just in case. That door on the left with what looks like concrete blocks for steps looks like it is pretty high off the ground and might make for a bad fall should one stumble when leaving the bar.

Speaking of bars, entering and leaving, reminds me of a song my drunk uncle used to sing about a bar called “The Gray Speckled Bird.” It went something like this:

Oh the Gray Speckled Bird is a mighty fine place

You can drink all you want till you fall on your face

The doors swing in and the doors swing out

Some people pass in while others pass out

That’s all I remember about the song. He was usually sitting back on his ankles on the floor when he got to that point. That was right before he would pass out. Somehow evolution happened and that spared him from a bad fall. My mother told me that years before I was around my uncle would stand at attention and recite the entire Rudyard Kipling poem “Gunga Din,” and would tear up on the last stanza:

You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!   

  Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,   

     By the livin’ Gawd that made you,

  You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

This was a man who volunteered for the Marine Corps at the start of World War Two and was one of the assault troops in the invasions of pacific islands and as a member of Carlson’s Raiders was landed on islands before the invasion to harass and terrify Japanese soldiers. He made it through the war, the only physical scars were a tatoo on one arm of a bulldog with a helmet and the other arm a Marine globe and anchor and a few knife scars that may have been in the war or later. The emotional scars were much greater and showed when he was drinking. Sober he was Kenny, drunk he was K. C. Smith or Smith K. C.