The Salty Dog Saloon

Out in the rural prairie you find your entertainment where you can. It's nothing to drive 25 miles in a huge, fuel-sucker pickup to a convivial place like The Salty Dog, located in a tiny hamlet just north of the Kansas - Nebraska line. If you click the link you will learn that the place is "biker friendly", although we didn't see any Friday night.

The food is actually pretty good. And cheap, by urban standards, but you better be carrying cash. No plastic. That's Margo, the owner, taking an order in the second shot. She didn't care if I took pictures but the family told me that you better not cause trouble because she's pretty tough.          

Eh?

What to do with your life: fly all the way to Tamarindo bloody Costa Rica, sit in Sharky's bar and watch a hockey game between the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers. Works for me.

No surprise, but there are a lot of Canadians in Tamarindo at this time  of year. The majority of people staying at the condo complex were from the Maritimes, Edmonton or Calgary. (There was one family from Wasilla, Alaska - you know, the town where a former vice presidential candidate ostensibly lives).  We were the southernmost people there. When we were returning to the airport Sunday we got stuck behind a long procession of identical Hundai SUVs, all flying the Quebec flag.

Sharky's is an odd little place. We went there for lunch a bit before noon and the alcohol was already flowing freely. Once again, pura vida.

Marysville, Kansas

I've been visiting here a time or two a year for more than 40 years. Mrs. C went to high school here and grew up on a farm 17 miles away. Marysville has about 3,300 people. The area is rolling prairie, not at all flat. Farmers grow corn, wheat, milo and alfalfa. Some raise cattle. When you drive down the gravel country roads the drivers of oncoming cars always wave hi as they pass.

This is small town America. Kansas has conservative booze laws and most bars can only serve beer with 3.2% alcohol, yet they are well-patronized. The main street appliance store survives despite the Walmart on the edge of town. Since I was here last summer, benches have sprung up all over town memorializing the deceased members of so many classes of Marysville High School. And why not paint a neo-primitive picture of the Wagon Wheel Cafe (where breakfast provides enough calories to last a week) on a circular saw blade?              

FUBAR

Another late post. Same thing happened last night as Wednesday night. Two weeks off in September. I can't wait.

This is a bar and music venue. The posters tell us what kind of bands perform at the place with the fractured St. Louis city flag in the window.

If you are not familiar with it, FUBAR is an acronym coined by the U.S. Army in World War II. The last three letters stand for "beyond any recognition."            

My New Business

Downtown Clare. Should I make an offer to buy it?

Possibility of a light aircraft ride this morning if luck is with me. Tentative plan for a day trip to the National Cherry Festival in Traverse, City, Michigan, way up north.              

A Chicago Bar

The number of bars in America is dwindling. Places that serve alcohol and a minimum of food, someplace to meet your friends and unwind, or to hang out alone but not, nursing your depression. There were lots in NYC when I was growing up but not so much now. However, the institution lives on in Chicago.

This is Swig, someplace in the Wicker Park neighborhood my son took me to before dinner. There was a TV with closed captions, best thing to look at in the establishment.                           

Truth In Advertising

Well, enough of me and back to The Lou. Here's a bar at Gravois and Ohio on the South Side. Lonely? Need human warmth without commitment?  Short term solutions, as well as Busch Bavarian beer (Budweiser's cheapie sibling), served here. Patronage will not improve your karma.                                   

The Safest Bar In St. Louis

Where to go when you need to drown your sorrows with complete security. In the US, a precinct is a local division of the police department. I don't know if this old building was once a police station but it could have been. Maybe cops hang out there when off duty. Can't say - I've never been in it. The logo resembles a St. Louis police department badge.

Jim Edmonds, the principal owner of the place, was a star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. He wore the number 15. Edmonds was so full of energy and enthusiasm that he was sometimes called Jimmy Baseball.                      

                    

STL DPB On The Road: Bremen, Kansas

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My wife sometimes jokes that she grew up in the suburbs of a town of 350. The family farm was about four miles outside of the hamlet of Bremen, Kansas. It has a bank, a farmers mutual insurance company and a post office. It does not have a grocery store, a gas station or a bar. This is the facade of the defunct saloon, which was called the Pool Hall. Saying that something is a bar in Kansas is a a bit of an exaggeration since they can serve only 3.2% alcohol beer. Not a glass of single malt or malbec in sight. Those cowpokes on the top wouldn't want a drop of no sissy malbec, either.

Too many time demands and too little Internet access yesterday. Downtown St. Louis 365 my go up Monday morning or perhaps Monday evening when I get home. Seven hour drive back to St. Louis today.