THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES: The B&S Inn
OBERRITER, ANDREW
The B&S Inn BY ANDREW OBERRITER he B&S Inn is set back far enough from the road that you'd think it's another of the run-down houses in Oaksville, NY. The squat two-story building does...
...While the others were grumbling, one named Buck drained his beer and headed for the door without a word-The others took no real notice until a moment later when there was a blast outside like somebody had cut loose with both barrels of a shotgun...
...Then there are the patrons...
...The B&S is the place where I learned of the catharsis of laughmg about experiences that were, in fact, incredibly p a i d . I'm much better for the lesson...
...Feminist Fatales angry girlfriends, or trucks stuck in cow pastures...
...These are men whose idea of sobering up is to switch to beer an hour before they drive home...
...each other to please her...
...She does all the cooking and her menu has been pretty much the only truly consistent thing in the regulars' lives over the last two decades...
...Hunting stories are also a favorite: Hapless men wander around ponds at dawn, accidentally peppering each other with birdshot, or stalk deer through the woods only to be outflanked and attacked by does...
...The wood somehow catches the lamplight, turns it the color of the horizon the moment after sunset, and then releases it again...
...It was as silent inside as it had become outside until Buck came back in, set a smoking 12-guge Ithaca in the corner, sat down, and ordered another beer...
...There are the stories that begin with "You wouldn't believe 88 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 9 June 2001 what happened to me after I left here last night," and end with state troopers...
...Bruce is the TV remote control, responding automatically to requests for channel changes...
...has had rather a rough time of it shot for les beaux yeux of Juliette since the second wave of feminism came Binoche...
...She has served, with no variation, the same six dishes on the same nights of the week since the B&S opened: Monday, goulash with bread and butter...
...BY JAMES BOWMAN F ew ideas are more deeply embedded in the Western culture that has shaped us all than that of thefmme...
...Why not have both...
...I've heard many yarns spun from a stool at the B&S...
...There are quite a few regulars, but they all seem to share the names Walt, Jerry, Buck, or Wayne, except for Merve, who is named Merve...
...all vying with mantle as a social benefit to both sexes...
...It is a view ofwomanly (sexual) power Patrice Leconte's Widow of St...
...He nods when you step through the door, he nods to acknowledge drink orders, he nods at punchlines...
...The dog set to barking and wouldn't stop--not even a slab of old meatloaf could quiet the animal...
...Plaques record the winners of the summer horseshoe tournaments and winter snowmobile rallies held out back...
...In Andrucha Waddington's Me, along...
...Those walls also hold a 20-year chronicle of the lives of the regulars...
...Bruce is the curator of the walls, collecting the pictures and clippings, making sure everything is ' tastefully framed before finding the right spot for i exhibition.When not hanging artifacts or pouring whiskey and suds, he sits on a stool at the far end of the plank bar, beneath the one television...
...Coupled with a little bourbon it can seem like the entire place is bathed in a golden glow that doesn't emanate from anywhere in particular...
...This gives him an air of" Membership is extended to anyone who doesn't ask for booze on credit and doesn't get so drunk he backs his Ford two-ton into the building while trying to find the road...
...Despite my fervent unspoken hopes, I am not on the wall...
...The squat two-story building does declare itself by way of cutout plywood letters nailed next to the front door, not that you'd notice...
...But hard lives yield great stories...
...Friday, fish fry...
...tinue to find favor in the movies and THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR W June 2001...
...And there is a vast, vast catalog of stories involving something heavy falling on someone...
...what woman wants one kind of power up for the sake of perky Kate Ashfield...
...Scattered throughout are pictures of guys holding record-breaking bass or the first buck of the season...
...Plmc, which, while it has flourished within living Daniel Auteuil is willing to get himself memory...
...They all looked 45 when they were 30, but then stopped aging, preserved by the alchemy of cheap beer, chewing tobacco, and Sharon's cooking...
...It's a story about two guys, a dog, and the bar's unlikely nickname...
...So in That the topless towers be burnt And men man that face Marleen Gorris's l7u Lurhin DC~CIUC, John Turturro's Alexander Luzhin pushes himself to win the chess champithat she was made the ksistible dung she onship of the world for Emily Watson...
...While the plainer sort of fitrninh, or those who want to advenke that beauty has not turned their own preay little heads fiom sisterly solidarity may rail against "the beauty myth...
...It goes like this: The usual crowd was gathered on a hot night...
...He reacts to everything by nodding...
...As you'd expect, many of the stories are accompanied by displays of scars...
...In was...
...Saturday, mystery leftover casserole...
...at the expense of the other...
...That last criterion might seem like a joke, until you realize that the clientele is comprised mainly of paycheck drinkers...
...Bruce doesn't believe in air conditioning, so the windows were open for a little breeze.The guys were enjoying a ball game and some conversation...
...Sharon is tiny and efficient, like the kitchen she runs...
...Ms this the face that launched a thousand ships?', wonders Faustus of his vision of Helen of T v , the same woman whose beauty was toyeats literally a work of art, made by whatever gods there were for a particular, catastrophic end...
...One of the fellows had his dog tied in the bed of his pickup outside...
...They've lived hard lives working construction or state road details...
...They're hard to get the measure of right off...
...And, just to Ms...
...Of course in prac- slacker (Aidan Gillen) is driven to shape tice...
...The only way to know if Bruce likes you--or if he even remembers your name--is to check the wall every so often for anything related to you...
...Indeed, it was an extreme example You, Tltem, the charming Darlene of the "feminine mystique" that Betty (Regina C&) snags herself not one, not Friedan's famous book undertook to dis- two, but three husbands...
...As soon as Bruce (the "B" of B&S) tacked the name up, Sharon (the "S" of B&S) came along and painted it the exact same dark green as the wall behind it...
...Bruce nodded, got Buck his drink, and fiom that day forward the B&S has been called the Bark & Shoot...
...Laminated newspaper clippings preserve birth announceunquestionable authority...
...Wednesday, meatloaf~ Thursday, spaghetti (if you ate there the night before, the meatballs will seem familiar...
...Thus, modern retellings of the amazon.com, www.drhurd.com Helen of Troy myth will doubtless con- and finer bookstores...
...Bruce is proud to tell you that he got them real cheap at an auction...
...It was so elsewhere because even the most determined ideological assault cannot erase the consciousness on the part of both men and women of what female sexual power is and what it can do...
...Find me another bar with a story like that and I'll drink there, Until then I'm spending my money at the B&S...
...The walls are paneled in pine...
...Tuesday, corned beef with boiled potatoes and vegetables...
...All this ensures that the inn is a joint for the locals, which is how everyone involved likes it...
...Membership is extended to anyone who knows the place is there, doesn't ask for booze on credit, and doesn't get so drunk he backs his Ford two-ton into the building while trying to find the road...
...Of all the legends I've heard there, the best is the one that accompanied my first beer at the B&S...
...Heat makes anybody ornery, and soon the whole place had had it with the dog...
...The B&S is a curious sort of members-only club...
...Occasionally one of them has a hard time not hitting huge stationary objects as he goes...
...He is a large, taciturn man who has gotten larger and more taciturn every year that he has spent behind the stubby L-shaped bar...
...Inside, the B&S is clean and much brighter than one might expect.There are no dark corners, thanks to the wall lamps, all of which are fashioned to look like ments...
...On Sunday Sharon rests, by which I mean she scours the kitchen from top to bottom...
...Friedan would have had us believe show that it was not only in the past, or that if women wanted the male kind of in the wilds of Brazil, that men have w h y s i c a l , political, financial, even done such things, in Jamie Thraves's The military-they would have to shuck the Low Dolmr, a pathetic, dope-smoking old mystique in a hurry...
...candelabras, complete with faux dripping wax...
...ordinary women-even (out of the nest) those of very advanced views-continue to cultivate their appearance with an assiduity that is scarcely less than it was in the days when they were stiU bemg socially prp grammed to confine their ambitions to marriage and children...
...slightly fewer are obituaries...
Vol. 34 • June 2001 • No. 5
