The Great American Saloon Series
Hedrick, Kenneth H.
THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES bs Kenneth H. Hedrick I should have seen it coming, but it came so relentlessly and swiftly that before I knew it the transformation was complete. The old and...
...There I would shake the dust from my boots and leave the sticky outside for the dark cool sanctuary of leather stools and foaming mugs of ice cold draft...
...My youth was made bright with times of summer and cruising to such waterholes as the Mainland Inn, the Rising Sun Hotel, or the Ridge Road Hotel, all built prior to the administration of Thomas Jefferson...
...When last I was there I sampled four bottles at random and a cursory report is as follows: Heineken dark, a rich malty concoction...
...Today the place has been sold and the inside gutted for God-only-knows-what-purpose...
...and the conversation ranged over a multitude of subjects, sacred and profane...
...no one was expected to mingle in the modern fashion...
...instead to discuss the events of the day and the mysteries of existence amid the peace of a countryside pub...
...The old customs are one with the snows of yesteryear-what with new and mostly absentee owners, inflation, and the introduction of that loathsome social custom, the "singles scene...
...Budweiser and Michelob usually flowed on tap along with the most disgusting beer in North America, Schaefer's...
...It is called the Valley House, and it is a dignified brownstone edifice constructed in the halcyon days of President Fillmore...
...Conversation is next to impossible due to the blare of Muzak, or worse, the inane monotony of "disco music...
...But like the God and Country they represented, they are no longer in vogue and have been replaced by ankhs, totems, chains, and other junk to dazzle the half-wits who take such things seriously...
...The uniforms worn by the males are depressingly similar...
...The Ridge Road Hotel was run by a stolid son of the Freistadt Bremen who always had Wurzburger on tap...
...Stout hardwood floors supported walls cluttered with old photos of local heroes of the baseball diamond...
...In this great blight on institutionalized tippling, the steady older crowd is driven away first by the deafening canned music and second by the neglect they suffer when in need of a refill, so that the new crowd of soi-disant studs and fluttery chippies can flock in like buzzards around a corpse...
...The old and venerable country taverns, where one found good cheap food, lager of varying quality and hue, and hardwood elegance, are succumbing to the modern age...
...and MacEwans Tartan Ale, a black substance which explains the great migration of Scots to all four corners of the earth...
...What solace it is to spend an afternoon or evening away from pompous TV commentators, inane summer reruns, and the countercultural scolds of the Rolling Stone...
...Molson light, a good and more familiar brew...
...The Zeitgeist has triumphed, and the old provincialism with all of its faults has been chucked out for a breezy, ersatz cosmopolitanism...
...Even the chintzy picture behind the bar (where the mirror should be) blended in well...
...Kenneth H. Hedrick, the psychohistorian, is presently writing a revealing biography of Edward Bulwer-L ytton...
...If the dining room was full, you could eat in the living room, which I did on several occasions in company with a friendly dachshund...
...What 1 found most appealing was that my fellow patrons respected one another's privacy...
...The Alternative: An American Spectator December 1976 33...
...The pace was somnolent, the company genial...
...My haunt is no more...
...But most important was the beer...
...The studs saunter up to the girl-objects (who are drinking such filth as Brandy Alexanders and Pink Squirrels) to ask blockbuster questions-"What's your sign?--and be rewarded by giggles and shrill cackling...
...The food was superb and the ambience right...
...Not too long ago anyone who sauntered into a backwater Pennsylvania bar clad in double-knits and asking for a Harvey Wallbanger would have greatly offended the local mores and prejudices...
...There are no funny little signs bedecking the wall behind the bar nor those cheap triakets one picks up on vacation in Atlantic City for Aunt Matilda, but only glasses, steins, helmets, and other silent reminders of other places and times...
...It is doubtful, though, whether the old Whig ever got a snootful at this Skippack, Pennsylvania spa...
...There are the inevitable Johnny Miller leisure suits straight from the Sears & Roebuck catalog...
...Where once there was mahogany, now there is naugahyde...
...At the Mainland Inn, an imposing brownstone hotel of impressive age, there was a dark brew called Prior--a little too sweet to be drunk The Valley House in quantity but pleasing if you only had time for a glass or two...
...Opprobrium would have been heaped on him by the more vocal patrons and sullen looks would have been cast in his direction...
...At any rate, the Valley House boasts a real hardwood bar and a railing twisted by the weight of a thousand farmers, yeomen, insurance agents, and garage mechanics who have bent the elbow to celebrate triumphs and mourn disaster...
...Pilsner Urquell, a strong and distinctive beverage, alien to the American palate...
...The Rising Sun Hotel, a proud establishment dating back to the reign of King George I, gradually turned "respectable," and today the owners run an inn where the pace is frantic and elementary courtesies are unknown...
...The real joy at the Valley House, however, is the availability of thirty-two (count 'em) thirty-two brands of imported brew in all shapes and sizes, good, bad, and indifferent...
...The tranquil, glassy gaze of two stuffed bucks' heads surveyed the assembled throng...
...Lest you think the entire scene is stale, flat, and unprofitable, I must inform you that I have stumbled upon a pleasant inn devoted to the welfare and sanity of the drinking public...
...Not very long ago, the only men who wore things around their necks were either veterans or Catholics with their dog tags or religious medals...
...And the uniform is not complete, of course, without a thingamajig around the neck resting on the hirsute chest...
...But no more...
Vol. 10 • December 1976 • No. 3
