I grew up in a bar. No, really! For 14 years I lived in a bar in Montana, with a one-bedroom apartment upstairs. And for most of those 14 years I went to sleep at night, listening to the jukebox below me, and the occasional laughter of the customers.
So I know about bars. I know about the folks who frequent bars, and I know that a lot of them find solace, comfort in a favorite bar. Most people found in bars are dealing with some most basic and human conditions. And for all the places in the world there are to go and think things through, work things out, the corner bar turns out to be the best place for so many of us. Montanans call their state “The Last Best Place.” I still think, to this day, that a good bar is the last best place.
If a bar has a good bartender, that bartender is probably a good psychologist. He usually becomes a good psychologist because his customers bring in, with them, many moods, many problems, many reasons for those problems, and they are almost all willing to share them with the bartender. How well he handles those many moods and problems usually helps define how good that particular bar is.
My folks, Helen & Guy Hulse, who ran The Tavern for 31 years\
A good bartender knows instantly whether to break one’s silence or leave them alone until they decide to say something, even if it’s only to request another drink. A good bartender knows instantly whether to be sympathetic to a story or problem, or to be noncommittal to it all, or even when it’s appropriate to give them “one on the house.”
Our bar was frequented by several Marines who served in WW II. I saw them sit quietly for hours, quietly nursing their whiskeys and trying to process, or more likely forget, what was going on in their minds, in their memories. Of all the places in the world, the bar became their solace, their private special place to try to work things out.
Now granted, the fact that a bar serves alcohol is a great magnet for a thinker and a drinker. So many feel that they’re able to figure things out better, see things better, when they’ve “had a few.” Probably not true, but I know what they mean, I feel the same way when I’ve plopped down on a bar stool for a time. And a bar is an instant cure for loneliness. Any decent bar has a few regulars, and most of them are willing to talk… about almost anything.
I loved our bar. It was a friendly, even practical place for our customers. For instance, we didn’t have any of those cheesy bar snacks, but rather had a snack bar at the end of the bar, where one could get a bowl of soup, a sandwich, a milkshake or a good cup of coffee… usually a little something to help one sober up a bit before the drive home, if that was needed.
The snack bar
Sometime in 1991, I was driving somewhere in Atlanta when the country song “Neon Moon” came on the radio. It was one of those, where it hit me so hard, I had to pull over for a few minutes. That song instantly brought back 14 years of my younger life, in such a stark relief, I had to just sit there and process it. For there were also times in my later life, that I had watched a “broken dream drift in and out of the beams of a neon moon.”
Bars have long been famous for having pretty, sometimes entertaining neon signs, usually advertising a beer or a whiskey. The Hamm’s beer sign was always my favorite, either with a happy bear dancing around with a Hamm’s, or the one with the pond, a tree, and a boy peeing in the pond. Our bar wasn’t big on neon signs, but we had a few.
Mom
As many bars as I have sat in and tried to dissect life, and mine in particular, still that song, Neon Moon, took me back so hard to a sweet evening with my mom, back in 1957. Money had been short that year and dad had taken a construction job in Peru, and had been gone for 5 months at the time. This one night there were no customers, and I was still up around 10 p.m. for some reason. As Mom had done several times before, she locked the front door and turned out the lights, leaving the bar in a warm, orange-ish glow, lit only by the few signs and the clock above the snack bar.
She got a roll of quarters out of the cash register, brought me an Orange Crush and pulled two stools from the bar over to the pinball machine. “Lets’s play some pinball,” she smiled.
The link to the song on Youtube –
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=neon+moon+brooks+and+dunn+live#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:92b32ed9,vid:j3sDGzx9y9I,st:0
Neon Moon, written by Ronnie Dunn
Sung by Kix Brooks and Dunn
When the sun goes down on my side of town
That lonesome feeling comes to my door
And the whole world turns blue
There’s a rundown bar ‘cross the railroad tracks
I got a table for two way in the back
Where I sit alone and think of losing you
I spend most every night
Beneath the light
Of a neon moon
Now if you lose your one and only
There’s always room here for the lonely
To watch your broken dreams
Dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
I think of two young lovers running wild and free
I close my eyes and sometimes see
You in the shadows of this smoke-filled room
No telling how many tears I’ve sat here and cried
Or how many lies that I’ve lied
Telling my poor heart she’ll come back someday
Oh, but I’ll be alright
As long as there’s light
From a neon moon
Chorus
Jukebox plays on, drink by drink
And the words of every sad song seem to say what I think
And its hurt inside of me, ain’t never gonna end
Oh, but I’ll be alright
As long as there’s light
From a neon moon
Oh, if you lose your one and only
There’s always room here for the lonely
To watch your broken dreams
Dance in and out of the beams
Of a neon moon
Steve Hulse
