“If I had to live my life over, I’d live over a saloon.”
— W.C. Fields
OMG, are they really going to hang fern plants in Waterville’s Bob-In Bar & Lounge? It’s a well-known move in the gentrification of old working-class bars in places like Chicago and Baltimore. When this happens, the first thing the new younger, hipper owners do is hang potted fern plants above the bar and start mopping the floors in the lavatories with Febreze.
What can we expect next? Scented urinal cakes in the men’s room? Strolling violinists? Is it possible that there will be an attendant in the men’s john, handing out fresh hand towels and brushing plumbers and roofers with a whisk broom?
Will there be a juke box full of Celine Dion’s greatest hits? Can we expect, on these warm summer nights as we stroll down Temple Street to the riverfront, to hear “My Heart Will Go On” wafting from the smoking lounge? Will the old crowd, the alleged bottle-tossing, bare-knuckled, profane shot guzzlers, take to drinking al fresco under Stella Artois umbrellas?
The news comes to us this week, from journalist Doug Harlow’s wonderfully detailed and evocative article, that central Maine’s legendary restaurateur Gubby Karter is pulling up stakes and turning the internationally famous Bob-In over to his brother, Fred Karter, whose well-known Jokas’ Discount Beverage provided all the liquid for the Bob-In.
Yes, it’s true, the once infamous saloon best known for Saturday night brawls, topless lovelies and tattooed bikers is about to undergo a face-lift, so to speak.
It’s breathtaking. Where once there were, as reporter Harlow reported, cocaine raids, knifings and fistfights, perhaps now there will be weekly Parcheesi and chess tournaments?
OMG. Am I the only one who can see the visuals? Fred Karter, a dapper and debonair local businessman, will be floating in and round the room, as Rick did in “Casablanca,” in a white dinner jacket and black bow tie, chatting with the new breed of customers.
It seems that in the whirlwind commotion of gentrification, anything can happen. Isn’t it possible that in an excess burst of sophistication, a small gambling room, complete with baccarat tables and roulette wheels, could appear? Can’t you just imagine Waterville Police Chief Joe Massey storming in one night and proclaiming, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.”
There is a patina of sadness lingering about all of this.
I grew up in a city full of saloons. I was taught by my drinking elders the difference between a saloon and a tavern. There were no “bars” in my childhood America.
My mother’s cousins, back in the late 19th century, ran a couple of saloons on Marceau Street in South St. Louis. They, Skeeter’s on Soaper Street and Schuster’s on Broadway were designed specifically to serve, as the Bob-In was, the working-class men with oil and grime under their fingernails and strong accents on their tongues.
A tavern, historically, from St. Louis to Dodge City, was usually a place with a ladies’ entrance and tables. It served food. Saloons, with their ubiquitous brass spittoons, offered free sandwiches and big jars of hard-boiled eggs on the bar.
This I know well, because I worked summers in my cousin Pete’s Four Aces and The Bungalow.
Pete’s brother, Frankie, ran a real working man’s tavern, Schuster’s, inherited from his German wife’s father, down on the Mississippi levee where once sat the infamous slave market.
Schuster’s served the best German food and beer on the river. Many a day I sat at the bar there, listening to the stories of refugees, river boatmen, cops and Irish politicians.
As the years rolled by, all of this faded, along with unions and the American working man. The gentrification of America’s watering holes was complete, and now the iconic Temple Street saloon seems about to be “cleansed.”
I envision a day in 2017, when Fred Karter stands behind his bar as the visiting President Hillary Clinton, on a national tour, pays a visit. Fred drops his head to his hands and moans, “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.”
Cheer up, Fred. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer
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