A Long Overdue Salute to the Colonel
Recently, I received a friend request on FACEBOOK from a woman whose name I did not recognize.
She then sent me a message that she worked with me at the COLONELS GARTER (trust me, it’s a name of a bar name from the eighties) and I immediately accepted. You don’t ignore a voice from the past.
After a short text message exchange, I thought about my time in that job. Made me think, ‘I should write a blog post about it’.
So, Carol, thank you for the inspiration; this blog’s for you.
Author’s Note: What follows is my memory, it may be right, it may be wrong, but it’s mine. In addition, I may not use names for two reasons:
One – to protects someone’s anonymity.
Two – I just don’t remember their names.
In the late seventies, early eighties, there were a string of bars that peppered New Jersey, they all began with the name Art Stock’s (insert name of bar here).
Art Stock, as far I as knew, was a school teacher, that somehow became the ‘name’ of a series of bars in the state. I worked in two ‘Art Stock’ bars, the Royal Manor North, and the Colonel’s Garter.
By far, the better bar was the Colonel’s Garter.
To be clear, I was a bouncer, not a bartender. Worked the door, roamed the floor, stood by the stage while the band played (maybe that’s why I have lousy hearing). It was a very casual atmosphere. For instance, even though the drinking age was still eighteen, sometimes patrons would enter who ‘forget their IDs’.
My reply?
“Just open your wallet,” I would say, “show me something. A picture of your dog, your favorite Aunt, I don’t care, just show me something’.
To which they would, and I’d let them in.
Air Guitar was big back in the early eighties. For those unenlightened, basically you stood on stage while a song played, and mimicked playing a guitar. Each week, The Garter (as we called it) had an air guitar contest.
Some would get into it, jump up and down on the stage, one arm circling the imaginary instrument.
However, that was nothing compared to what a friend I’d known since high school did one night.
He walked up on stage, the music started, and he played air guitar. When the song ended, he took a bow, then pulled up his shirt, pulled down his pants (and underwear) and raised his arms in triumph.
During this display, my manager, Ray, stood next to me on the floor.
He laughed, then asked, “Isn’t that your friend?”
Yes, I tentatively replied.
“Well, tell him he’s banned for a month.”
Exactly one month later, with the banned lifted, my friend went up on stage – and did it again.
To my knowledge, after the second ban from the club, he retired his air guitar act.
There is a slight addendum to his action, during his ‘act’ he started a chant about a body parts (one which everyone could clearly see) but I can not, and will not, repeat it here.
Just know, there was chanting.
The best part of working in a bar, also the worst, was closing time. It is so hard to get drunks to leave a bar when the lights come on. Around and around I’d go, tell people to leave, and they just didn’t get the hint. In reality, we just wanted them out so the staff could drink while the band of the night broke down their equipment. While the band did that, we’d drink for free and play video games (usually PAC-Man and Ms. PAC-Man – don’t judge us, it was the eighties).
Sometimes, we didn’t leave the bar until the sun peaked over the horizon.
Did you know, when bartenders cleaned their stations, they would serve us a drink called a ‘Jim Jones’?
What is a ‘Jim Jones’? Glad you asked.
Quick history lesson: Jim Jones was a cult leader that killed his followers with a lethal concoction of cyanide and fruit juice.
It’s where the phrase ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’ comes from.
For us, it was a concoction of all the alcohol run-off collected in the rubber mats underneath where the bartenders mixed their drinks (Vodka, Gin, Tequila, Scotch, mixers, soda, etc).
We would end up doing shots of this conglomerate of liquids (Amazed we are still alive).
During one of these after-hours meeting, my manager, Ray, said to me, “Al, before I hired you,” he laughed, “I would order one case of Tanqueray every three months. Now, its a case a month.”
My drink of choice during work hours? Tanqueray and club soda.
I think it was just a coincidence.
It wasn’t all just business, of course, their were also affairs of the heart.
Well, almost.
There was a woman that worked the Imported Beer Bar that I liked. Back then, it didn’t take much for me to like a woman, but it took me to move a mountain to actually tell her.
I did, I asked her out, and she said yes (cue the fireworks montage).
The next night, as I walked into work, this woman came out to meet me in the parking lot. How sweet was that? Her she was, greeting me before work started.
Turns out, not so sweet.
She came out to tell that she could not go out with me because she liked someone else.
Side Note: It’s always High School.
I guess (well, I know), that I don’t handle rejection well. The rest of the night was a drunken blur, and because we took care of each other during trying times (well, I’d find out later what might have happened during these ‘trying times’) I was given a ride home.
The next night, when I made it back to work, I was told that there was a discussion, with me in my inebriated state, they wanted to put me on a plane to Boston, as a joke (this was the eighties, you could actually do that).
But, instead, they drove me home.
I’d like to thank those that voted against this absolutely horrible idea, because I don’t think I would have done well, drunk and alone, (new reality show?) in Boston.
When it was over, and the bar was sold, the new owner decided that what South Amboy needed was a New York City-style Night Club (it did not).
On the last night of the Colonel's Garter, the band Flossie played. Flossie was the lead singer and she wore tight red leather pants.
Pure Rock’ N’ Roll.
The night the new re-imaged bar opened (City Lights), and was now like a New York Night Club, Flossie (also re-imaged) stepped out on stage in an evening gown.
Neither the bar, nor the band, worked.
A few years later, the bar became a strip-club called ‘Delilah's Den’.
After that, who knows if the building still exists, but all I know is...
...it was fun while it lasted.
