A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR

Ispoke with an old friend, Chris Hutson, about his childhood memory of his grandfather who owned one of only two taverns in the tiny Iowa town of Clare, just outside of Fort Dodge, Iowa.

“So, your grandfather owned a bar in Clare, Iowa?” “Yes, Clare was founded by Irish immigrants at the turn of the last century. The surrounding farmland was made up of German immigrant farmers,” he replied. Clare was a small town of about three hundred people. It had two churches and two bars. Chris continued, “It was a roughneck, hard drinking town. The bars were side by side in this tiny town. One for the Catholics and one for the Lutherans.”

Chris’s grandfather, Edward Kane, was a prominent Clare community member. He was a volunteer fireman, and a devout member of the Catholic Church: ash on his forehead the Wednesday before Easter, fish on Fridays, bingo on Saturdays. He owned the Catholic bar, Willie’s Lounge, which he apparently bought from the previous owner, Willie, and never changed the name. “Why confuse the patrons?” he reasoned.

Drinking Stories

by Terry Hart, Director of Competition, PR%F Awards

Never Trust Anyone Who Won’t Drink With You.

As a boy in the late 60s Chris would hear stories about life in the small American Midwest town and the people who drank there. “It was a great party town. In the summer they would have donkey baseball. I remember one time The Harlem Globetrotters came to town. It was the B team. Meadowlark Lemon wasn’t there, but Curly played. On the fourth of July they had fireworks. Fort Dodge didn’t have fireworks so everyone from the county came to Clare. There was a big parade, which everybody in town marched in. They would have a greased pig contest…” “What’s that?” I asked.

“They’d smear grease all over a pig, and the men would have a bunch of drinks and run around and try and catch the pig.” “So, everybody would drink Schlitz beer and try to catch this poor pig?” “Yes, Schlitz and Hamm’s. Those were the big beers back then.”

My trivial mind kicked in, “Oh yes, Schlitz, the beer that made Milwaukee famous.”

“My grandfather drank Hamm’s back in those days. “Hamm’s the beer refreshing... Hamm’s...” I sang. “Right. Then he switched to Old Style.”

“So, he got fully kreausened all the time?” I chuckled. ‘Fully Kreausened’ was the slogan on the can of Old Style Beer (some brewing process) but it was slang in my Chicago neighborhood for getting beer drunk.

Chris looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You know your slogans, huh?” he said with a sarcastic smile. I was curious about the parade. “So, everyone in town actually marched in the fourth of July Parade?”

“Practically. We were speaking of Hamm’s Beer earlier. I remember one year someone dressed up in the Hamm’s Beer mascot costume. A giant black and white bear. Over seven feet tall. He scared the crap out of me!”

Clare sounded like a wild place to me. Chris agreed, “Clare was a big drinking and big fighting kind of place. My grandfather was a former boxer and he carried around a picture of himself as a young boxer. My uncle says that Ed Kane was not a boxer, never was, and the picture he carried around wasn’t even him.

“Ed Kane was a wink-and-a-nod kind of guy.” Chris admitted.

Chris told me that his grandfather always had a bar in the basement of all the homes he owned through the years. “At holiday times I remember being in the kitchen with my grandmother, Fern, while she was preparing snacks for the guests. I would lay on the floor and listen through the heat vent. They’d be laughing and playing music and eventually arguing and fighting, knocking over furniture… and then laughing again.” Chris remembered a particularly big moment in his mother’s life. “Grampa Kane was my mother’s father. In 1957, my mother eloped with my father.” Chris tells of the moment when his mother and father had to go to tell Ed Kane about the marriage. “My mom said that when they told Ed about their marriage, he stood up from the kitchen table and said ‘come with me’ to my father. She was nervous about what Ed would say or do.” Ed took him down to the basement bar and poured each of them an Irish whiskey. “He asked my father his intentions and what his plans for life were. A long time went by and finally they emerged from the basement. Both drunk, my Grampa declared, ‘I bless this marriage’.”

‘Never trust someone who won’t drink with you’, were Ed Kane’s words of wisdom to Chris’ parents.

Today, Chris lives in Woodland Hills, California and works as a television editor.

Taking a cue from his grandfather, Chris has a bar at his house. Chris loves to entertain. His back bar is loaded with a great selection of spirits. The shelves are adorned with 2 old Schlitz signs and some other interesting decorations from Ed’s old bar. The biggest difference - and his favorite - between Chris’ parties and those of his grandfather: no fights. Irish whiskey is Bushmills which is the Protestant whiskey. Jameson is the Catholic whiskey. Chris thinks if Ed knew that he would be rolling over in his grave. Terry Hart is a contributing editor for PR%F the Magazine who loves to explore personal stories of the lives and libations of the common man and woman.

Chris Hutson