The Corner Bar
There was a corner tavern in Barton, on the north edge of West Bend, Wisconsin, just a block away from my efficiency apartment. The rent was $120 a month—half my salary when I worked at the West Bend nursing home in 1971. After other expenses, I was left with precisely one dollar a week for entertainment, and every Friday night, fifty cents of it went to the bar on the corner of Barton and Roosevelt.
West Bend and Barton were solidly German, blue-collar towns where folks spent a lot of time in the local taverns. Beer was cheap—one bar in Milwaukee even advertised five-cent happy hour beers.
Every Friday at 7 p.m., I’d walk to the bar, push open the heavy wooden door, and nod to the half-dozen old men perched on stools or gathered around tables, smoking and talking. I’d order the first of three fifteen-cent tap beers—a nicely sized glass, full and cold, that tasted like something earned. Most nights, the bar had free popcorn, and occasionally, free peanuts. I sipped my beer slowly, crunched on buttered popcorn, and listened to the old men talk.
One of them was "the Chief," a weathered seventy-something with some Native ancestry. He was always there. Everyone called him "Chief" with a quiet respect—not the exaggerated kind, but the kind shared among men who had seen the same wars. He and the others had fought in World War I. Chief had some lingering war injury and a collection of medals to show for it. His pension covered enough fifteen-cent beers to get him through an evening, with an occasional round bought by a friend.
It seemed they were all retired. They talked a little about work, a little about sports, a little about friends in and out of the hospital. Sometimes, they asked Chief for a war story. He had plenty. The details shifted slightly with each telling, but the pattern remained—narrow escapes, close calls, and the moments that earned him his medals.
I stretched my three beers (forty-five cents) over two hours. If I was feeling adventurous, I’d spend my last nickel on a pickled egg. By nine o’clock, the bar started filling with younger folks, and the old guys drifted off. Filled with popcorn and carrying the slight buzz of cheap beer, I’d thank Wib, the bartender, say goodnight, and walk home to ponder how I’d spend the other fifty cents of my entertainment budget on Saturday.
Later, when I married Margo and we had two incomes in a $160-a-month apartment, life felt luxurious. We could go to a movie, eat at a restaurant, even splurge on a trip to Milwaukee to visit the Mitchell Park Domes—basking in the humid warmth of the indoor greenhouse on a frigid winter day. Of course, in those early married months, a good deal of our entertainment happened at home.
This evening, after attending my sister-in-law’s funeral, my son Scott stopped so I could take a look at the old bar in Barton. From the outside, it looked much the same. But inside, it was unrecognizable—TV screens blaring from every wall, people shouting to be heard over the noise. The old bar and stools were gone, the place gutted into one big, impersonal room.
Not a thing I remembered was left.
So I didn’t ask for a fifteen-cent beer or free popcorn. And I didn’t stay to listen, because the only old man there was me.
