Who remembers the bar at the bowling alley, with the pool table and the jukebox? I remember a night around 1995 when I kept dropping quarters in to play “Funky Cold Medina” over and over until someone told me I’d have to leave unless I stopped.
The best bar I ever saw was a pub (tavern? inn? I’m not sure what they called it) on the road north of a town called Skibbereen in County Cork, in Ireland. This was approximately 2004, when I had the good fortune to spend a few days visiting with a friend’s friend, whose brother owned a dairy farm at Drimoleague. On Sunday, after church, everyone in Drimoleague went to the bar — and I mean everyone, grannies, kids, babies, teenagers — and then, later in the afternoon, the villagers conducted horse races up a country lane, between the hedgerows. It’s possible I’m conflating the road-trotting and the stout-drinking — this was a long time ago — but it definitely happened: I saw two horses barreling by.
This bar north of Skibbereen was a family local. In my memory, the Sunday crowd was in chipper good humor, streaming into a barroom redolent of wet wool and coal smoke, making O’s over their heads with their arms as they unwrapped themselves from layers of damp scarves, calling out to one another. (My imagination may have added these cornball details to the scene. West Cork social life probably did not then and does not now resemble a 1980s ad for Irish Spring soap. Nobody was whistling a jig, or exclaiming “Manly, yes, but I like it!”)
This week’s column was going to be about eagles — eagles I’ve seen flying over Main Street in the last few months — but I think we need to talk instead about the depressing lack of a bar here in East Hampton.
I’m actually kind of a nondrinker. Not that I haven’t tried. A good bottle of wine stood on the daily dinner table in my childhood; the adults enjoyed a tipple every night with their spicy squid and banana curry and other 1970s gourmet dishes, but I myself almost never have wine. I’m one of those tiresome people who, when offered a glass, has to sheepishly admit it doesn’t agree with them. A metal band goes ‘round my forehead after one sip, violent red splotches bloom on my neck and face, and within two minutes a creeping existential alienation comes on, and then I sit there, inert, at the dinner party pondering the eternal truth that we all are born alone and die alone.
Likewise, a frosty glass of beer does not inspire me to sing “Sweet Caroline” or caper about slapping pals on the back. But, nevertheless, I like the idea of sociable drinking, and frequently wish someone would hand me a champagne cocktail with a sugar cube at the bottom soaked in orange bitters, even if I manage to drink only half the flute before I’m overtaken by a powerful desire to fall asleep on a pile of coats as we did in our 1970s childhoods.
There are no bars today in East Hampton Village, or in Amagansett, or in Wainscott — are there? The Talkhouse has a bar in it, but it’s not a bar, it’s a roadhouse and concert venue, if we’re honest. I realize you can go to the bar in one of our many fine steakhouses and Italian restaurants, but that’s not what I mean, either. I mean a bar.
There used to be bars everywhere out here, everywhere in America. Wainscott in the 1950s had a boite frequented by theater types, with nightly entertainment, and of course in the 1980s had two or three gay bars and nightclubs. In Springs, once upon a midnight dreary, you could repair to the refuge of Jungle Pete’s. Apparently, there was even once some kind of bar down at Lazy Point. That’s hard to imagine. It must have been windblown and atmospheric.
I only went in Cavagnaro’s Bar by the train station a couple of times — incredibly, I think one of those times was to watch a boxing match, which only shows you how old I must be — but how homey it was. My favorite bar as a 20something was Salivar’s at the commercial dock in Montauk. Those were the days! Salivar’s still had the reputation of being a slightly dangerous place, where fishermen coming in off Georges Bank might knock a bystander over the head with a bar stool or taxidermied shark while drunkenly fighting.
We need a bar in East Hampton, and not a fancy one, not a faux one. We need a comfortable bar of the sort you see in British television shows like the ridiculous and hilarious Scottish sitcom “Still Game”: a community living room, not a hot spot, and if the varnish is a bit worn where the ring-toss hits the hook, and the red leatherette torn in places by the weight of too many behinds, all the better. An afternoon and evening bar, not a late-night eleganza extravaganza. Amber light. There should be modest bowls of bar snacks of questionable tastiness, peanuts or those little pretzel twigs, and a cigarette vending machine. (The vending machine might have to sell something other than cigarettes, if cigarette smoking is no longer allowed in bars. Is it? That’s how long it’s been since I’ve entered a bar.)
The music playing in the bar should be low enough that we can hear one another talk, though at peak hours the talking should get loud enough that we have to shout a bit on the punchline: “People in Dubai don’t like ‘The Flinstones,’ but people in Abu Dhabi do-o-o-o!” It would be best if the bar had a fireplace or woodstove for us to warm our feet by in winter, even though that touch is not very American. There should be playing cards, dice, and board games on a shelf that you can borrow from the bartender, but some of the Parcheesi pieces and Monopoly pieces should be missing, so you have to use a coin or acorn out of your pocket.
I would not like there to be a mixologist on staff. Still, someone like me, who is only a feeble drinker, should be able to ask for a shandy — whatever that is — and get a fine shandy, and sit there nursing it until the dairy cows come home.