There used to be this great bar on Court Street called the Three Fours. It was on the corner of Third Place and Court at 444 Court St. Hence the name.
Anyway it was an old school neighborhood ginmill. Only neighborhood blue collar guys or people who were from the neighborhood were ever in there. It was hard core. You got an honest pour and the beers were dirt cheap. They only had domestic beers like Pabst and Miller and Reingold and Schiltz. Budweiser was a premium beer. Cutty Sark and Dewars were the top shelf liquor. Hard boiled eggs and pickles.
The one thing about the place was it had the most fights of any bar I ever saw. Somebody was always going outside to mix it up. The cops came all the time but they never wrote it up because they liked to drink in there on the arm so they wouldn't get closed down.
The funny part of it was it was always the same two or three guys who would start the crap. One of them was a relative of the owner and I think another one had a piece of the joint. I never had a problem as I had helped them out of a tax thingy and they were appreciative. I never went there that often and I never brought any of my friends because I didn't want them to get in a middle of a beef for no reason. So I would drop by once in a blue moon and have a couple of pops and then go on my way.
Nobody wants to hang out in a joint where somebody is just waiting to pick a fight with you. I know that. So I won't let it happen. I don't want my friends to get in a beef for no reason. I can handle myself but I don't want to put anyone else in the barrel. Just sayn'
32 comments:
I get it.
Well don't give to anyone else.
That's what he did to her and that's why she has the thousand yard stare.
Here I thought you had morphed into Rocky's trainer and wanted to toughen us up in the ring.
I can't remember Bud ever being a premier beer in Wisconsin. I do remember the dive beers like Blatz and Huber. I don't think Huber was ever good enough to put in kegs.
Nah.
I am just real busy and didn't have time to supervise. Plus I don't like to delete people.
But enough is enough is enough.
My comments in the previous thread now read like I was shadow boxing or hallicinating. Kinda funny actually.
Yeah it is.
But who said this blog was supposed to make sense.
Most people who come in unaware have no idea what is going on.
I like it like that.
As opposed to those of us who are totally aware we don't know what's going on.
Bring on the Dancing Girls!
With huge tits.
And go Red Sox!
Like everything else, J can't spell.
The word is, "shillelagh".
And I think Mrs Troop is a nice-looking lady
yo,Esposa! you married a ..shaleighleigh
Troop should knock your block off and block your knock off.
Schlitz was a good beer. Pabst, not so much. I think Schlitz is defunct. What a great word, defunct.
The dame in that picture must've been in every other movie made in the 40's. Something trampy about her, but also respectable. A semi-respectable tramp. That kind of appeal. A poor man's Joan Crawford. Or is that a bit of a stretch?
Unbearable to listen to EBL and some bright young thing drone on and on about psychosexual matters as they pertain to Zippy. Ah well, what a relief it is to be out of the chattering class action.
I was a big Reingold guy but that was just because my Dad drank it every night. So when I snuck beers out of the fridge that's what we got.
To us Reingold was what beer tasted like.
"Rheingold the dry beer is my beer.
It's not bitter, not sweet,
Extra dry flavor treat...."
Where is Miss Rheingold now that we need her?
Schlitz.
That was the beer that made Milt Famey walk us.
Trooper,
Do you think "J: up or down" might be a good poll subject? Kind of like the SNL Andy Kauffman poll?
But deep down Andy had feelings, so that probably woudn't work with J.
I just have this image of you getting up in the middle of the night 'cause you can't sleep, and deleting a bunch of comments. Won't be good for you long-term guy, it could turn you into a grump.
Schlitz is a great old Anglo-Saxon word. I bit on the vulgar side, but good vulgar.
I had a condo meeting tonight.
George Bush's personal assistant for 8 years of his administration was there, Blake Gottesman-look him up.
A MIT Professor, total bitch.
Two Real Estate Queens.
Harvard Law Professor and his Real Estate husband.
Some Young Republican and his Jewish Wife.
A Phd who works at Biogen.
And me!
Seriously, that is the condo board.
How fab is that really?
And Troops wife is fucking hot and anyone that says different can fuck off.
That last comment I wrote without having seen the nearby Rheingold commercial. Quoted the words from memory. It's amazing the sticking power of those jingles. Of course, we never saw that NY-centric commercial out in L.A. We had the straight, corny singing-and-dancing ones that looked Midwestern. I guess L.A. wasn't important enough in those days. And, anyway, what would an L.A.-oriented commercial look like back then? Spanish-language? Never saw a Spanish Rheingold commercial on TV. Plenty of Budweiser ones, but never Rheingold.
Que lastima. The weird idea of that jingle in Spanish is enough to give me sweet dreams as I head back to bed.
And Titus, there are lots of interesting people in Cambridge. I think it's second, only after Manhattan, for high-achievers in this country. Even the street people are philosophers. Saw a couple of bums nursing coffees trying to stay warm on a cold day last winter in the Au Bon Pain on Mt. Auburn St. They were talking epistemology and the philosophy of science. Really, I'm not kidding. An example of what can happen to you if you don't get tenure and can't bear to leave.
Great post...you can really capture a time and mood in the past.
WALT you are hereby officailly banned along with J.
And please stop by the shop so I can personally kick your ass.
Who's Walt?
My!People come and go so quickly here!
Anytime Walt. Anytime at all.
I think WALT is J.
Very possible.
Certain things are off limits here.
Being nasty to my wife in number one on the list.
This place reminds me of a cloud chamber, where I infer the existence of a particle by the condensation forming in its track.
OTOH, that's life (mine anyway).
This place reminds me of a cloud chamber, where I infer the existence of a particle by the condensation forming in its track.
I trace this all back to when Titus first got on his cloud kick. I'm not blaming him, just saying that the timing is odd.
Clouds.
Glad to see Tim back!
And J gone.
Perfect description of recent doings here on the Trooper York Expressway: http://youtu.be/FaB5u0XyiTk
Bars. I grew up in bars.
My Irish granddad, Mickey, started taking me with him to bars when I was just out of diapers. He'd sit me on the bar with a root beer while he talked with his buddies.
He'd drink Hamms, Huber, Schlitz, Potosi, Old Style, Point Special or Chief Oshkosh, depending on which cost less.
I took to cars the way kids now take to dinosaurs. He'd bet some mark two beers that I could (at age 4)identify the make, model and year of the next three cars that rolled past. The mark'd take the bet, and I'd chirp out "1947 Mercury Salesman's Sedan" or "1953 Ford Tudor Flathead V8" or "1954 Buick Roadmaster Straight 8". Granddad would get two free beers.
As I grew up, we'd continue to go to bars together. He'd come to 'visit' my mom (his daughter), say hello, then say something like "Oh..I wanta show Mikey that new car wash.." and we'd drive past it on the way to a bar.
By the time I was in high school I'd sit on a stool next to him and listen to him talk about heat treating; his job until he retired at 65. He had an 8th grade education, but some of the things he learned about heat treating wound up in engineering text books. It wasn't unusual after he retired for his old boss to show up with a case of Chief Oshkosh, some metal bars and say "Mickey, we got a problem gettin' this thing hard enough. Whaddya think?"
I'd stop and visit him one my way back and forth from home and college. By then I was old enough that we'd have a few beers together. And I wound up working part-time and a bartender and a bouncer at college bars.
He lived to be 94, and in his latter years didn't like family gatherings. He'd pretend to be deaf so no one would bother him, but I'd sit down next to him and whisper "Hey Mick...wanna go out for a couple?" He'd perk up and say "by God, ya, let's go" and we would.
At the end, when he was in the hospital, I took a couple of beers with me. "Ya want a beer, Gramps?" was met with a weak smile, and he'd take a few sips.
I still go to bars, though I stopped getting drunk sometime in my late 30s. I have a favorite bar, a nice quiet place in the woods, next to a lake, where the bartender knows my name. I (now we) go there for a couple of pints when we can. And a couple of memories.
God love ya, Mick.
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