Karl Klockars

It seems kinda lame to get nostalgic over pieces of furniture. It is, at least, an example of misplaced emotion. You don’t actually miss the yellow floral-print loveseat, you miss the times you spent with friends watching TV and hanging out; you don’t miss the uncomfortable old La-Z-Boy you got from someone’s trash, you just remember how you got it. So it struck me as somewhat odd when I was hit with a pang of regret when I heard that my late grandfather’s bar was long gone.

When we used to travel down to Buppo and Toni’s house (that’s what we called gramps and gram respectively and I’m still hazy on the why) right off of A1A in Florida, there was Tab in the garage, there were old wicker chairs, there was an old TV where I saw my first (and last) few moments of Hee-Haw, there was strange grass, lots of humidity, crazy summer storms, and up by the wall, in front of a number of framed war artifacts, was my grandfather’s bar.

It wasn’t big, it didn’t have a sink hookup or cool lights or neon in the room–it was a big hunk of wood that held glasses and an ice bucket and some bottles of Jim Beam. A glass that held some swizzle sticks sat on top of the bar so he and my grandma could mix their daily 4pm cocktails, and maybe some of those cool plastic swords for cherries when they decided to make Manhattans.

Incidentally, behind my grandfathers bar was where I first encountered the word “shit.” Not that I understood what it was, but there it was, up on the wall, a framed sign that proclaimed if was unable to dazzle “them” with brilliance, that I was to baffle “them” with bullshit, next to a drawing of a smiling donkey. That wisdom stays with me to this day, I might add.

And even though it wasn’t big, even though it was probably just particle board thrown together with some leather padding it was still freaking huge to a little 5 year old me who couldn’t wait to get to the beach most of the day. Aside from the geckoes in the backyard and the big crane the neighbor had, it remains one of my major memories from their place in florida.

Also, it was one of the high points of the day when we could get on the stools and spin around. That was fun.

But I went out to breakfast with some of my family when we were discussing Toni’s move to an assisted living facility (Buppo’s been gone for a few years now, from liver cancer–go figure) and my mom asked me if there was anything I wanted from down there. It was like a gin-soaked Tinkerbelle tapped me on the shoulder with her wand shaped like a bottle of Beefeater (Toni and Buppo liked their gin and tonics as well) and said to me, what about the bar?

And then came that pang of the regret, that internal “awwww…” when mom tells me, “Oh, the bar? That’s been gone for a long time.” Logistics aside–how to get it up here, where to put it in my tiny one-bedroom, how to break it to The Girl we’re going to have to make room for a bar–I got bummed. The pouring rain didn’t help, even though it’s a little late for scene setting.

I got a small reprieve when dad mentioned that Buppo’s collection of swizzlesticks was still up in the garage somewhere. I’d ask about the picture of the grinning donkey but I’m sure that’s lost to the ages. But it struck me in a dose of nostalgia I haven’t had for a while now.

And I realized that I miss furniture. I miss sitting on the couch I had in my old dorm room, where I learned to play cards and make friends. We used to have a big cushy red lounge chair that was literally fought over when it came time to crash out at my old house. I think we ran it over with a Brougham or maybe dropped it off a roof, in a sort of viking funeral. In any event, I put a strange emphasis on things to sit on or in front of.

I even go back to the house I used to live at and pretend there’s still couches in the room that used to be the main gathering point. Just to put myself back into that place for a few minutes, just for fun. Same way I’m going to miss our shitty pieced-together futon and our crazy mismatched set of schizophrenic endtables. I miss mattresses. It’s weird.

But I know I really miss everything that went along with it. I say goodbye to sets of dresser drawers and can still probably pick out of a lineup all 93 couches we had at the slum I used to live at late in college. It’s just an association–two terms of the same psych class tells me that–but it’s a strong one.

So I guess it’s no surprise that I would associate some sort of lost-youth train of thought to that bar. It was a lot easier then for a number of reasons, most of which were more youth for all involved, three less kids to lug around means the folks can be a bit lighter and for the most part everything was good times.

And then things get piggybacked on top of that. The huge Lincoln towncars with tinted windows that drive you to the Publix and the Ron Jon’s. You forget about the lack of sleep in a scary room by yourself and trying to turn on Inspector Gadget at 4am to try to get to bed. You remember how things were a hell of a lot simpler and that’s probably at the root of all of this. But it’s okay. It’s just a matter of getting more furniture to appreciate later.

The bar is no more, but I’m getting those swizzle sticks. You don’t remember the sun burn, you remember the sand castle.