Childhood Memories of a Bar

Returning to town after a shopping trip with with my Mom and Aunt Marion, they spotted my Dad driving ahead of us and followed him. He drove away from the usual route home and we followed him to the Log Cabin Bar at the corner of Stoeflet St. and Worth. The log cabin in later years became a market but when I was four years old it was still a bar, a really old fashioned Michigan bar. The two crazy women responsible for me hatched a plan. The told me to run through the bar with my arms outstretched to my Dad crying "Daddy, Daddy, please come home!" 

After giving Dad a couple minutes to settle in, the women pushed me through the bar door for my acting debut. During my high-school years I gave an honest try at acting, joined the drama club to be closer to Kathy B., but found that I was better at, and more comfortable with working backstage. More of a nuts and bolts kind of guy.

I ran across the expanse of dark pine floor, climbed my Fathers bar stool, and was swept up in his arms, sat on his lap and treated to a sip of beer and a salty, smoked salmon jerky, without saying a word. Irene and Marion hovering at the door laughing their heads off.

The Moms left me with Dad and the regulars to enjoy a bit of time with the "guys", and I took in a vanishing snapshot of Michigan  history. The dark pine floor and bar, the log walls, the smell of tabacoo smoke,  beer, and whisky. The company of  men who had crewed on sailing and steam lake boats, who had built wooden ships and had worked in the steel mills, and early auto factories. 

Today of course we would all be put into rehab and counseling, but then it was just a normal part of life.