As Time Goes By

It was a dark and …

starry night.  It had been stormy earlier, but the front had moved on and left the night sky clear.  It was about the only thing that was looking good at the end of this long day.  It had just been one danged thing after another, one of those days when everything had gone wrong and everyone had been getting on my case.  When I could finally come up for air I knew just where I needed to be; my favorite Bar & Grill. 

The B&G is a bit off the beaten path, one of those cozy joints known mostly by word of mouth and hard to find.  Even as many times as I’d been there, if I was headed there from a different neighborhood I might have trouble finding it.  Fortunately I knew where to look for the trail of breadcrumbs.  But tonight it wasn’t necessary.

I cruised through the parking lot first, looking to see who else might be around.  The usual crowd was there, as far as I could tell.  And it looked like Lori and Btuda had dropped in, too.  I was glad to see that as we hadn’t seen them around much recently.  When I went to open the door, I had some trouble.  That was unusual and I wondered if the door was becoming warped from all the rain we’d had.  I took a good grip on the handle and put my shoulder to the door until I felt it give a little.  As I stepped into the place I could hear laughter and snatches of conversation.  TwinkleToes was at the bar, bemoaning the fate of her tomatoes to GP who was listening with a sympathetic ear and dispensing advice.  RSS was bartending tonight and I signaled to her for my usual - rocks, lots of salt - and took my glass over to the big corner booth where everyone habitually congregated.  There were several conversations going on all at once and the air around the big table was filled with overlapping voices.  A few of those voices had been out of town for a few days, but folks always found their way back to the B&G eventually

I heard someone say, ” …

97 comments August 10th, 2008