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Speech given at Gulf Breeze Toastmasters December 2017
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See if you’ve heard this one. A boy walks into a bar meets a woman and leaves a….
Hold on let me tell you the backstory first.
The year was 1987 or 1988 and Aerosmith was about to play a big concert in Charleston, WV. Now some of you may think of Aerosmith as this super huge mega band. But in that year they hadn’t toured since 1976 because they were strung out on heroine for a decade. One of the greatest albums of all time “Toys in the Attic” when Aerosmith played rock n roll instead of pop music could be purchased for $1 in bargain bins everywhere. But me and my friend Bud were huge fans. So we bought tickets and waited for that glorious evening.
As I mentioned before, it was the 80s and the heavy metal counter culture was in its glory. So before the concert a took an old pair of cowboy boots and spray painted them red. I wore a long Navy trench coat and I teased my long hair out so it looked like I had been electrocuted by the devil or something. To give you a better picture, I was literally a 100 lbs lighter than I am today, so I was merely the framework of this lusciousness you see before you.
The night arrived and we jumped in my friend Bud’s Celica and headed on our journey an hour and half drive to Charleston WV. Bud’s Celica had no back seat, it was just a wall of big speakers and we rocked out all the way there.
Aerosmith was amazing and they clearly put on a show that put them in their rightful place of Rock n roll masters.
Completely energized, we head for home. Well, not exactly home since it was Saturday night after all and we were high on rock n roll and the fog of whatever that was the 70’s rockers were passing around so we decided to go Crusin’ in Ironton.
For those that are younger, long before people had iPhones and social media, we had to actually meet each other. So the way to do that was to get in your car and drive back and forth in a designated downtown area in a traffic jam like the way on purpose. So that you could try to talk girls to blindly and trustingly get into your car and ride with you. We’ve come a long way…
I should also mention that this also entailed typically drinking beer while driving in the said traffic jam. A long way…
Hence there was a problem, it was after midnight when we rolled into Ironton Ohio. So there was only one place you could buy beer as an under 21-year-old in the tri-state area, and that was a place called the Riverside Cafe. A couple of things to know, it doesn’t serve food, you only had to be 19 to buy beer in Ohio, and this was the roughest bar in town. It was so bad when you walked in they would ask you if you had a gun, and if you didn’t they’d give you one…it was rough. Kidding but it was rough. The place had a reputation for stabbings, shootings, and bar fights. Whether half the stories were true or legend, I have no idea, but if you ever go there, you’ll tend to believe it to be true.
We pulled up in front of the bar and again, I have teased hair, and red boots on. Bud has dressed appropriately but is not old enough to buy beer. So we have a dilemma because if I walk into that bar with red boots on, I won’t walk out. So I ask Bud, “What size shoe do you wear. He says, “8 1/2” I wear a 12, this not good. But we really wanted beer. So I take rainwater off the top of the car and wet my hair down and slick it back and stuff my 12s into his 8 1/2 shoes and go hobbling into the bar. Quite painful. However, it did add a bit of character having a limp which I thought was helpful walking into such a place.
I get in, I order a 12 pack of Bush beer because that’s what you buy when you have no money. The bartender says he has to walk down to the dock to get it and will be back in a minute. So I set there and wait when at the end of the bar our two very drunk and very redneck women who just saw the fresh meat walk in. They were quite loud and were exclaiming they had just been kicked out of every bar in Ironton except this one. So yea classy. Then I could see the stars and hearts coming from the eyes of one of them and she was locked on.
She stumbled over to me puts her arms around me and says, “Will you dance with me!”
You know when you see in the movies when a guy or a cop walks into a bar and everything goes dead quiet. Well, that happened for real, at least that’s how it seemed to me. The last thing I want is for this 40year old drunk woman making advances on a 19yr old to make a scene and have one of these other, what looks like cold stone killers, come to her rescue. So I say yes. She grabs me the jukebox begins to play the longest and slowest song ever in the history of ever. “He stopped loving her today” by George Jones.
So we slow dance and she’s rubbing my shoulders with one hand grabbing my butt with the other hand and every time my heartbeat I could feel it throbbing in my toes in those tiny shoes.
The song ended and the bartender had returned and I quickly paid the man. She begged me to stick around but I said I had to go and quite panicked I grabbed and went towards the door. There in front of the door was the bouncer for the Riverside Cafe. The biggest man I’ve ever seen his head was above the door frame and he stood in front of the door with his arms crossed. And when I walked up he didn’t move he just stood there stoic.
By this time the pain had overridden my senses so if someone would have stabbed me I wouldn’t have cared. So I give the guy a smirk like had more confidence than sense that seem to say, “You gonna stand there all day?” He snorts and moves and I get outside and hobble to the car and was never so glad to wear red boots in my life.
So sometimes a boy walks into a bar, meets a woman, and leaves a boy and that’s just good enough.
