Childhood Gin Joints

It is a very strange thing that the true legacy of my dad -- the "gift" he gave to me -- is the ability to walk into a bar with confidence.    I don't walk into a room confidently.  I don't like walking into a room where I don't know anyone.  It is a very anxiety provoking moment for me.  One that I have managed to learn to hide very well -- like the way an alcoholic "hides" the monster in the box.

But bars hold no fear.  Sadly, it feels warm and welcoming, whether or not, in reality this is true.  

Now I'm not talking a swanky place.  I'm talking about a joint.  A moose on the wall, Zeppelin AND polkas on the juke box, smoke-filled (or used to be), NASCAR on the television joint.  A place where they may or may not ask, "What is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Hey, I didn't say I blended, I said I could walk in, sit down, order a beer and wait for whoever I was meeting.  It doesn't happen often, but it is a fond childhood memory for me.

It is the fondness that is very sad for me when I think about it enough.  I was dragged to a bar just about every night of my childhood.  I would be given a Shirley Temple or a coke and told to go sit by the tele while my parents sat at the bar and talked.  They had their usual haunts.  Ones where my dad would be thought of as clever rather than sarcastic and belittling.  The bartender would know to keep 'em coming.

This is not to say I was particularly disturbed by this modus operandi. The saving grace of childhood is all you know is all you know. It was my normal and, like most kids, the familiar is comforting, no matter how odd to the mainstream. And, it gave me a life skill of sorts. To this day I am still more comfortable having someone else lead the way into a new social situation. Thankfully, I am no longer comfortable walking into joints. They give me the willies. But I hold back, watch, determine the lay of the land, and tentatively step forward into it. And if there is a drunk at the bar, making an ass out of himself, I can smile with pity and detached amusement.