Ode To The Bear and To Your Local Bar

I have spent the better part of the last 10 years working in bars. They feel like home to me, and none more so than my current home, The Thirsty Bear in Lakewood. It is truly a special place, and I know many of you out there share my fond perspective of the community that exists within its walls. I realize that many people in the world cannot understand the kind of camaraderie that is fostered in the atmosphere of a bar. To some of you, it must seem like a pit of debauchery, and we bartenders, peddlers of poisons and opiates of all forms. I assure you, in many ways, it is, but who among us can honestly say that we do not seek some form of distraction from our lives, some place where we feel welcome? Who doesn’t want to go where everybody knows your name?

The right kind of bar can be a home, complete with a family of sorts. I know that The Bear has been that for me so many times in the past two years, and for well over a decade for many of its staff and patrons. The customer base is roughly eighty percent regulars, which makes it a place full of familiar faces. The people who patronize it are caring, hard-working, and extremely generous, and I have seen so many of them go to great lengths to help the staff, as well as their fellow bar mates, on a regular basis. I have been brought to tears by the generosity my regulars show me, and how quickly they are there to offer me help or a shoulder to cry on. These people have helped me move, have lent me money, have brought me home-cooked meals and homemade gifts, have given me the coat off their backs (literally one time), have cried with me, and have laughed with me more times than I can count. This place, where we all come to meet up with each other and socialize, is like our clubhouse, and we all know how integral the clubhouse was to the bonds we held in childhood. Now, as adults, we thrive off of the connections we make at our local watering hole. We need to be able to meet, to talk, to vent, to laugh, to dance, and yes, to drink.

In these uncertain times, and times of strange solitude and separation, I am reminded of this place, and of these people, and I realize how painfully I feel their absences from my life. I miss the bar, and I know how that sounds, but after reading this, hopefully we can reconsider the importance of our local bar, and the seemingly surface encounters and experiences we have there.

To all my patrons: I miss you, I love you, and I hope you and your families are all safe. I can never truly put into words what your support and interactions mean to me each day I spend in the Bear. You are all a huge part of my life, and you are essential. I simply cannot wait until I can walk down the bar hugging each of you in turn again, and I look forward to turning up the jukebox and dancing around like crazy! If you are part of my bar family, then you know the mantra: Let’s get weird!!

Until then, I’ll be thinking of all our good times fondly, and toasting each of you, somewhere out there…