For Fathers' Day

[chowmama]

Although the gentleman in question was no relation of mine. I do hope he did have children.

(Another silly story from my youth.)

I spent a summer in the 70's working at a summer theater in the Wisconsin Dells area. I tend to think of the whole area as Baraboo, but in fact there are any number of towns and I think this particular place was in Lake Delton. It was a really small bar called the Wooden Nickel on the same lake that Tommy Bartlett's Water show took place on. We could watch the ass end of the shows as we drank, if we didn't mind the mosquitos.

The bar was associated loosely with a motel practically on the same property. The clientele was always a few people from the motel, some older locals who sat at the bar playing Yahtzee, with as many beers as their monthly social security would allow, and a fair percentage of summer performers.

The area, it's important to note, has people who live there year-round. They generally dislike the performers, but loathe the tourists. You do not want to frequent a business that caters to a group of which you are not a member.

The owner and bartender of the Wooden Nickel was called 'Bear'. I might have known his real name back in the day, but he was just Bear. Old going on elderly, but huge - think Hoss Cartwright size. The performers, especially the women, frequented this bar because they knew they wouldn't be harassed by the tourists. If you were ok with the attention, Bear didn't judge (at least out loud), but he stood for no nonsense.

So. one night we were 'blessed' with a party of young assholes. They were loud, obnoxious, rude, entitled, sexist and would not let up. Bear came over to tell them to lay off. Their leader, in so many words, told him to mind his own business and eff off back to the bar. Bear told them to leave. The ringleader sat back in his chair and scoffed, with some more language. They weren't going anywhere until they got at least one of these loose women to go with them. (I'm paraphrasing, of course - they weren't sober enough to be that articulate.)

We'd always assumed a lot of Bear's bulk was fat. However, he bent over and took hold, one-handed, of a chair leg. He llfted, one-armed, the boy on the chair to eye level and said, very quietly, "You wanna repeat that?"

I don't know if the kid's life passed before his eyes. I'd like to think he pissed himself. He definitely was suddenly realizing how severely he'd overestimated his ability to chew what he'd bitten off. He said, equally quietly, " No, put me down. We're leaving."

And just like that, everything went back to normal. No further comment was made.

To Bear. He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not see his like again.

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. That's a great story

Thank you for sharing