Grew up in a bar. When most kids my age were at the park playing ball or

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I 
grew up in a bar. When most kids my 
age were at the park playing ball or 
riding bikes, I was watching old men 
shoot pool and play shuffleboard. I 
saw a barroom fight before I ever saw 
a sporting event on TV. 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. But les-
sons can be taught by unlikely teach-
ers in unusual environments. All that 
is needed are instructors with pure 
hearts. Clear eyes are optional.
108
october 2020

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My father spent his entire life serv-
ing drinks and bringing cheer to an 
eclectic clientele. There were the 
white-collar executives who would 
stop in to unwind from the day’s 
stress. They would bend elbows with 
the blue-collar and day laborers on ei-
ther side of them. It always surprised 
me that they were able to mingle. Of 
course, eight ounces of draft—and/or 
any liquor splashed over ice—have a 
way of helping two parties find com-
mon ground. I would sit at the last 
table by the kitchen, sipping Cokes 
and eating a bag of Better Made po-
tato chips with my twin sister, watch-
ing it all. 
It was the 1960s version of a real-
ity show. There was Cran, the school-
teacher, 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. If the students stayed awake, 
they received a B. If they slept through 
class, they got a C. 
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. Bill was 
not what you would call politically cor-
rect. In fact, his views on society could 
be hard to listen to at times. But one 
night, he showed that he was all talk. 
While Bill was on patrol, a call came 
over the radio about an apartment fire 
just blocks from his location. He raced 
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. Built in the ’30s, it had a long 
wooden bar that was on the right as 
you walked in. 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. Customers sat 
on stools with burnt-orange vinyl seat 
backs or at one of six tables against the 
wall. Miller was always on tap.
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