He had a smooth tongue, smooth enough to talk my teetotaler grandmother into hoisting a beer with him.įrank was balding and bespectacled and often wore a cardigan over his slim frame. He lived just a rolling beer bottle from the back parking lot, and the bar would light up when the Mayor brought the room to session. His parents had named him Frank, but throughout the neighbourhood, everyone called him Mr Mayor. Without a doubt, the most memorable guest of the establishment was a man dubbed the Mayor of State Fair Avenue.
Myschool cafe full#
It is just too bad that Bill wasn’t at the bar to stop the man who ate a full ashtray of cigarette butts to win a bet! The man with an explosive mouth but a keg-sized heart had saved the day. The burly cop carried them out in his arms like each was a carton of eggs. He ran up three flights of stairs through smoke and flames to rescue two frightened children. He raced his scout car to the scene, beating even the fire crew. While Bill was on patrol, a call came over the radio about an apartment fire just blocks from his location. But one night, he showed that he was all talk. In fact, his views on society could be hard to listen to at times. Bill was not what you would call politically correct. Then there was Big Bill, the tough-talking policeman who stood six and a half feet tall and weighed just shy of the beer truck he drank daily.
If they slept through class, they got a C. If the students stayed awake, they received a B. There was Cran, the schoolteacher, who always said he graded his sleep-deprived students on an ‘S’ curve, handing out passing grades even to those who nodded off because he knew they were making up for the sleep they lost in their troubled home lives. It was the 1960s version of a reality show. I would sit at the last table by the kitchen, sipping Cokes and eating a bag of Better Made potato chips with my twin sister, watching it all. Of course, eight ounces of draft-and/or any liquor splashed over ice-have a way of helping two parties find common ground. It always surprised me that they were able to mingle. They would bend elbows with the blue-collar and day labourers on either side of them.
There were the white-collar executives who would stop in to unwind from the day’s stress. My father spent his entire life serving drinks and bringing cheer to an eclectic clientele. Customers sat on stools with burnt-orange vinyl seat backs or at one of six tables against the wall.
Myschool cafe movie#
It was curved at the end, with four-sided lamps, the kind you might see in an old movie about 18th-century London, hung low over the bar every three or four feet. Built in the ’30s, it had a long wooden bar that was on the right as you walked in. My parents owned a neighborhood bar called the M Ninety-Seven, named for a nearby highway, on the corner of State Fair and Hoover Avenues in Detroit. All that is needed are instructors with pure hearts. But lessons can be taught by unlikely teachers in unusual environments. I don’t imagine that Dr Spock’s book on child rearing, which was so popular 50 years ago, advised exposing children to dimly lit drinking at an early age. I saw a barroom fight before I ever saw a sporting event on TV. When most kids my age were at the park playing ball or riding bikes, I was watching old men shoot pool and play shuffleboard.
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