Category: Guests
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Overheard on Mothers Day
I told both RG Daughter and RG Son that they didn’t have to worry about calling me today, since I had to work. They called anyway, one after the other, as soon as my shift began early this morning. God love them. Thus, I have a measure of hope that they will never have a…
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She Works Hard for the Money
Words a bartender never wants to hear: “I’m really broke, so I’ll drink the cheapest draft you have ’till my money’s gone.” Then they ask to bum one of your cigarettes. I understand being broke. I am broke. But if I am going out, I plan for enough money to cover my tab AND a…
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Wheels
How can you tell it’s happy hour at a Keys bar? The bike rack is full. My work life is filled with “givens.” It is a given that my two Nam vets and my part-time co-worker will be sitting outside on the deck when I arrive to open. It is a given that the first…
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Painting Away a Day
Oh no, not again, I thought as I watched him hoist his paints and brushes and head toward the front door. Predictably, the moment he took two steps away from his car, it began: the high-pitched whining and barking that would not cease until he packed up his paints and his brushes and went home.…
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The Last Thing I Said to Him
I made it home just fine today, despite the two rum and sodas. I was supposed to work a double, but it was only 10 hours. I needed the rum and sodas because I wasn’t ready to go home after the double that wasn’t. Because it had been a day that felt like ten. Which…
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Everyone in the Pool
Longer ago than a long time ago, I applied to Duke University as a transfer student. I had just spent a year off from school amassing a stack of newspaper clips bearing my byline at my first reporting job (okay, I was a lowly intern), and I will never forget the pride and thrill I…
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Book Club
I have never been a book club person, which, when you consider I have multiple books swirling about in my head on an hourly basis, is somewhat ironic. The first and last time I agreed to attend a book club gathering was many years ago. I grudgingly bought the current week’s choice, “Letters from Vietnam,”…
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The Stuff of Dreams
Most local folks in these parts live today while thankfully leaving behind or only looking forward from what used to be–running through their drinks while running in their places, silently cheering themselves on as they cross the finish line that means they never again have to live who they once were. I used to own……
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So Easy to Judge
“People actually drink at 7:30 in the morning?” asks a friend who works in an office far, far away from here. “Oh my God, seriously, you have business at that hour?” asks another from another city. “They must be complete and total alcoholics,” frowns another who lives close by. Yes. Yes. Probably. Maybe. Actually, I…
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The Accidental Dinner
A restaurant god exists somewhere out there, I am convinced, for the sole purpose of sending in a wonderful guest just when you despair that human beings are at their most hideous when they go out to dine. She came in exactly at five o’clock when we opened, pausing at the bar to chat with…