The Public Policy/Gentlemanly Spooks
Beichman, Arnold
BARMAIDS by Joe Mysak Bad enough the profession is loaded with mere tads and rank amateurs-now we have to put up with girs!" A comment by a sports purist? Perhaps the plaint of a crusty...
...Now compare this inestimable individual to the typical barmaid...
...He was a just arbiter when disputes arose...
...a patient listener to long and rambling narratives...
...But it is not the way of the saloon...
...The last swallow of beer is swept away and the glass refilled...
...Having survived its enemies, the old-time saloon might not survive its friends.ive its friends...
...There are no surprises in an age which finds nothing sacred but the profane...
...The young, toothsome barmaid has no use for long, rambling narratives...
...The hordes of flaming harpy feminists...
...She knows nothing of timing: Either the drinker goes for long stretches dry, or he is drowned...
...It is cheaper to hire little girls and boys just out of their rompers...
...As for breaking up arguments and disposing of louts and bone-bruisers, she is obviously deficient, and has no recourse but to call for the constabulary, the owner, or a disinterested patron...
...Witnessing such a little incident is nobody's idea of unwinding over a few drinks...
...I am not referring to those superannuated bunnies, heavy users of peroxide and rouge, now familiar in many corner bars, nor to the unwholesome or simply obscene...
...The customers...
...At the very least, he commands a wage large enough to raise a family, if not one commensurate with his skill and rarity...
...An episode: A chap who looks for all the world like a high school teacher, but in his cups, yells out, "Hey, where's my brother's birthday kiss...
...It is, if the one behind the stick is pleasing to the eye, nice, very nice indeed...
...Keep this in mind, and add the qualities which only the experience of many seasons gives: timing and proficiency in the arts of mixology...
...But it is stretching the limits of toleration to have sweet young things working the taps for brakemen and boilermakers and sundry other toilers...
...Needless to say, she is never very far from the 106-page Bartender's Companion...
...But looks are deceiving...
...Not once, but three times...
...Or possibly the barrack-room remark of an Old Soldier...
...Perhaps the plaint of a crusty newspaperman...
...For another, the general assumption is that a sweet young thing attracts crowds...
...To wit: She is a distraction, and is bound to bring out the worst in otherwise inoffensive tipplers...
...But every saloonkeeper must know that this is wrongheaded at best, and pernicious at worst, and that there is no substitute for professionalism...
...Finally the harried miss behind the bar declares, sternly, "I don't kiss married men...
...It is as if you were confronted by the sight of a male manicurist...
...Or "for summer vacation...
...But the tender barmaid brings with her a certain amount of built-in, as it were, problems...
...Ask for anything more complicated than a beer or perhaps a Scotch and soda and you are asking for trouble...
...Or "just for a few months...
...a fair-minded referee . . . always a peacemaker...
...The owners...
...Perhaps typical is not the word...
...Only one in ten knows how to make a proper Bloody Mary, while none knows how to make a Fog-Cutter...
...In sum, bad enough the profession is being mauled by those who ostensibly know and appreciate their high calling-now we have to put up with a botched job by the young and the foolish who never really knew what it was all about...
...For one thing, they are more comely...
...Nor is she very far off the precise measurement legally required for a cocktail...
...They are all good guesses, and they are all wrong, because the author was a drinker on his way home from a night's serious work...
...He knows when it is his turn to buy...
...It would not have occurred had the one dispensing the potables been a fatherly figure by the name of Mike, I can assure you...
...Who is to blame for the invasion of the saloon by giggling girlhood...
...A workingman on his way home from his night out with the boys, he was referring not to the scantily clad lasses serving them up in Playboy Clubs, airport lounges, singles bars, sex dives, discotheques, Studios, and related alcohol pits where imbibing is secondary to ogling, but to the alarming increase in the number of barmaids in the country's remaining saloons, pubs, and ginmills...
...The American philosopher and fable-maker George Ade describes the ideal bartender in The Old-Time Saloon (1931), a memorial volume published during Prohibition: "His attitude toward the problem of life was benign rather than cruel...
...I am talking about winsome, apple-cheeked cuties closer to cheerleading than motherhood, and escapees from status jeans commercials, in their early twenties...
...Such sloppiness can be chalked up to inexperience and lack of a real feeling for drinking...
...Do not misunderstand...
...The bartender is a man of years, with pride in his work...
...It is jarring to the senses, it is unnatural, it is even absurd...
...He is not moonlighting-this is his career...
...He knows the regulars, what they drink, and what they tip...
...The bonnie barmaid is doing this only "for extra money...
...This is a very agreeable sight...
...The last is the most likely: The professional bartender is a dying breed...
Vol. 14 • April 1981 • No. 4
