The Great American Saloon Series/A Requiem for a Tavern
Royko, Mike
to sacrifice either quality or access, there is little we can do to cut costs. The Carter Administration should therefore be prepared to take the consequences of greater inflation if it...
...If the Administration wants more comprehensive insurance, it might be best to limit it to children, as proposed by Theodore Marmor of the University of Chicago...
...It rings up quart, pint, halfpint...
...But in Swastek's Tavern, 1859 W. Chicago, there were only Stanley the owner, a friend, and the sleeping watchdog...
...So many of the people are old, living on their pensions...
...A Pulitzer prize winning columnist for the Chicago Daily News, Royko is author of Boss: Richard J . Daley of Chicago...
...So did Mayor Anton Cermak, an anti-Prohibition hero...
...It's too bad history can't be put in an ad because Stanley's fine mahogany bar has had a lot of it spilled across the top...
...The ad described the bar: 26 feet long, solid mahogany, built by Brunswick in 1886...
...There seem to be good reasons, for example, to adopt a catastrophic insurance plan, such as that proposed by Senators Long and Ribicoff...
...It was 5 o'clock and dusk...
...Or the singles bars, for that matter, with their strenuous games...
...Look at it, the cigar counter, the package cabinet, they're mahogany too...
...Also mahogany, with ornate carving, pullout wine racks, and one of those huge mirrors that movie cowboys are always throwing things at...
...and the most it can hope for is that the form it chooses will be less costly than others...
...You know what did it...
...I don't think he understood what he was getting...
...A glance down the empty bar would have been enough: " J u s t look around the neighborhood...
...THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES & Mike Royko A Requiem for Tavern Like old-time politicians, old-time saloons are fast slipping away...
...That was 70 years ago and you could buy a good brick two-flat for that money in those days...
...He took out a copy of an antique-dealer's magazine...
...When John Swastek, his immigrant father, opened the place, a 3-cent-a-ride streetcar clanged past...
...You know it wasn't designed for any grocery store...
...In the cocktail lounges along Michigan Av., the martinis were starting to flow...
...Stanley slapped the reddish wood...
...Mike Royko knows this well...
...In 1973 be wrote "A Requiem for a Tavern" for his column and later collected it in his volume, Slats Grobnik and Some Other Friends...
...They sat at the tables and played pinochle, banging down the cards until their knuckles were swollen...
...Some people say TV killed the tavern business," Stanley said...
...Most of us are healthy, after all, and it is hard to imagine how lucky we are to be relieved of the pain and the constant threat of death that have afflicted men, women, and their loved ones for most of history...
...The young people move away as fast as they can afford to...
...So I think it's time to lock it up...
...Martin The Alternative: An American Spectator April 1977 25...
...One might even say that our health care today is a bargain...
...A candidate could get more votes by buying a round than making a speech...
...Some dealer called me from Kentucky...
...I laughed at him...
...Some famous political bellies bellied up to Swastek's mahogany...
...In those days, a good tavern was a political center...
...The back bar was in the ad, too...
...Stanley was explaining why, after almost 70 years in his family, the corner tavern was being shut down at the end of the month...
...but health, as any grandmother will tell you, is just about the most valuable thing in life...
...I told him to start talking at $8,000...
...The Carter Administration should therefore be prepared to take the consequences of greater inflation if it insists on some form of national health insurance...
...The eager young glands were beginning to congregate in the singles bars on the Near North Side...
...When my father opened this place, the bar cost $3,700...
...He said he saw the ad and he was willing to take it off my hands for $1,200...
...Look, I put an ad in for all my fixtures...
...but catastrophic care is by definition the most expensive kind of care, and to limit its costs, it might be best to follow the suggestion Martin Feldstein made several years ago in the Public Interest: i.e., to couple catastrophic insurance with fairly high deductibles varying according to income...
...Senator Javits and Representative Scheuer have introduced a bill calling for comprehensive insurance for children and p r e g n a n t mothers...
...People want to do more than just drink in a tavern...
...By the time I pay for my license and dram-shop insurance, it costs me almost $2,000...
...Medical costs have been rising at an irritating rate, and we oughtto limit them if we can...
...With the author's permission we republish it...
...Look at this ancient cash register...
...they see it as a foot in the door for a complete national health insurance plan, but it might be wiser to think of it as an ultimate goal...
...In the meantime, perhaps we should worry a little less about health costs...
...The Puerto Ricans go in their own places...
...Mayor William (Big Bill) Thompson came in with the local cigar-puffers...
...When the police knocked out the sociable card games...
...Ed...
...The costs of pediatric care are relatively small and the benefits comparatively great: children have fewer chronic and incurable diseases than adults, and they can probably benefit more from preventive measures...
...And if he bought enough rounds, he could make a speech and the customers wouldn't even laugh...
...Men with lunch pails and accents came in after work and ordered their nickel shots and nickel beers...
...Look at the English pubs with their darts...
Vol. 10 • April 1977 • No. 7
