Remembrance of things Pabst

So I know I have mentioned how the wife likes to get together with her girlfriends at least once a month. Two of them lost their husbands within a month of each other and the wife wants to be there to support them. Anyhoo some other girl from their old neighborhood organizes a get together every year and this year they all decided that the wanted to go. On a fuckin Tuesday night no less.

Now I got dragged to this as I am dragged to all of her events as I am on a short leash. It was in this joint called "Wheeler's" in Sheepshead Bay. I had never been there but it seems that they used to got there back in the day. Sheepshead Bay has really changed a lot since I was a kid. I used to go there with my uncle to go on the party boats to go fishing a couple of times a year. You would pay twenty bucks and would go out for blue fish or fluke or in colder weather codfish or mackerel. Those boats are all mostly gone now. There used to be fifty of them and you could go down there at around five in the evening and buy the fresh fish that the crew caught. But insurance and regulations and bullshit had them all go out of business. Now Sheepshead Bay is mainly Russian now and most of the old time neighborhood people are gone. Most of the people who showed up have moved to Jersey or Long Island and were only slumming back in the old neighborhood. Well actually they grew up in Midwood/Bensonhurst but you get the idea.

Now I didn't have much to do other than getting the wife and her girlfriends drinks and snacks. I do what I always do. Ordered a round....introduced myself to the bartender....and tipped him strong on the first go round. Then I started a tab and just kept feeding them drinks and mozzarella sticks and wings and zucchini sticks and fries. They only had greasy bar food.....which is just about my favorite cuisine. They were busy laughing and telling stories and having fun. I had to make my own fun. It was a real redneck bar that was playing the greatest hits of the seventies. You know Led Zep and Leonard Skynnard and shit like that there. So I had to sidle up to the fancy juke box and play James Brown and some Peter Tosh and a little Earth Wind and Fire. It is September after all. Now that went into the mix but it never played while we were there so it most likely came on about three in the morning. Nice.

I made sure I had my own tab as when you are in a situation like this you don't want to be caught holding the bag. This way I controlled what was on the tab as I got everyone's drinks.It was an early night so I called for the check and it was forty bucks. When is should have been a hundred at least. So I tipped him an additional forty and made a friend. They told us to come back soon.

Not likely.

But it was good enough for what it was. The wife wants them to come to downtown Brooklyn but I hope that doesn't happen. They would want to go to a different type place than the wife likes and I don't want up the ante where it is going to cost me more.

Let's hope they got it out of their system for another year.