Is It happy Hour Yet?

for Marina Times, August 2010
by Bruce Bellingham


My favorite story of the month is the one about the transient who unlocked a shuttered bar up in Auburn (it was closed for ABC violations), and started selling drinks on his own. He was not the real owner. The town was so grateful that the watering hole had been revived, the local paper, the Auburn Journal, did a feature story on the welcomed reopening. The illicit proprietor gleefully posed for pictures. Then the cops recognized him from the paper as someone they had run into the hoosegow a few times for vagrancy. It seems he scared up the money to buy a six-pack, sell it in the bar, and garner seed money to buy more booze for the customers. This charade went on for days until the authorities got wise to him, and trundled him away.
The late Ron Fimrite had a great, old expression for jail: "durance vile."
Remanding him to durance vile is all wrong. Surely this sort of initiative should be recognized in some favorable way. The fake tavern owner showed real entrepreneurial spirit. Aren't we supposed to be creating jobs these days? Perhaps others would like to take over other shuttered businesses, and give it their best shot. There are plenty on Union Street. Putting the guy in the slammer at the expense of taxpayers isn't very constructive. Maybe he should be sent to bartender's school as part of his rehabilitation.
Speaking of rehabilitation, I walked down Union Street the other day, and found myself fielding questions about my health. Yes, I was absent from these pages for some time, and was in the hospital for some time.
People may inherit money from their families; some of us inherit heart disease, and a taste for unhealthy things to go along with it.
When my father had heart trouble -- there's a euphemism -- the doctors told him to take phenobarbital for chest pain, and recommended bed rest. A massive heart attack killed him at age 46. They can do a lot more for heart patients these days. However, the patient had best cooperate with the regimen. Dr. Dean Ornish (I'm always namedropping, even if it's over a mere matter of mortality) sent me a note, and offered his support. Years ago, he warned me about the perils of a bad family history. Have you ever seen his Reversing Heart Disease Diet? Sheesh. One is expected to eat little except nuts and berries, sort of a post-nuclear holocaust menu. Birdseed for the rest of my life. That's for the birds. OK, OK. I get it. You may expect a tweet from me.
This is the punishment for all the sybaritic times that I've had. Durance vile. I will be reduced to furtively peering into deli cases, and harboring impure thoughts about the mortadella.
"Listen," I said to the nurse at St. Mary's Hospital, as she added anti-coagulants to my IV, "If I water down my drinks, will my blood be thinner, too?"
The smartass question went dutifully ignored.
But I wasn't ignored. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for the people at St. Francis, St. Mary's and General Hospitals. And I'm grateful to Dr. Debbie Brown, Dr. Harvey Caplan, and Dr. Mary Gray. Yes, I have a Dr. Brown, and a Dr. Gray. I'll get to the pastels one of these days. Lots of other non-medical people were really sweet to me, too. Grateful I am, though I once published a sentiment that read, "When you start counting your blessings, you're really screwed."
Yes, these dark habits are hard to break.

Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay, and writes for the Northside. Send him an encouraging word at bruce@northsidesf.com

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