2011年9月3日 星期六

The other side of the bar

SOUTH BEND - Sometimes, when the alcohol is flowing and loud jokes and innuendoes are filling the air, Madelyn Larkin employs a trick of the trade.

She turns down her hearing aids and goes about her business.

For 45 years, that business has been serving at the Maennechor Club near the East Race, first as a waitress toting beers to bowlers in the basement’s four lanes, eventually working her way to the bar. On Friday two days before she turns 90, she’ll officially hand out her last beer and mix her last rum and Coke there.

She hates to quit, she says tearfully, but it’s time. Since her husband of 69 years, Sam, died last Thanksgiving, life hasn’t been the same. But she’ll miss the people she’s met here.

People like trustee Kendall Griffey, whose 18-year-old son is like Larkin’s own grandson. And trustee Ray Owens, who’s known her for almost 40 years. And Patti Sellers, and Bill Mabry, who join several others in raising their glasses and saying “Hear, hear!” when Owens toasts, “She’s been one hell of an asset to this club.”

And then in the next breath, they tease her about having “sticky fingers.” It’s funny precisely because everyone knows their white-haired barkeep doesn’t lie, and she doesn’t steal. She’s heard a lot of beer-driven confessions, but she doesn’t tell tales. (Here, she tugs an imaginary zipper across her lips.)

Yet she can dish out as good as she gets.

After Larkin retires, she tells Mabry, people can come to her house anytime to visit.

“You got beer?” he asks.

“I’ve got a refrigerator full of beer,” she says, timing perfect. “But I’ve only got two for you.”

‘Madelyn would have won’

Madelyn Deardorff met Sam Larkin at a high school roller skating party. He attended Central; she was a sophomore at Woodrow Wilson. She promised her parents she’d finish high school before they’d marry. And she did.

Sam worked at Studebaker and later retired as the Zamboni driver for the city’s parks department. After their two children were grown, she began hanging out more with him at the club.

When Sam’s many medical problems began to lead to kidney issues at the end of his life, Madelyn spent every day by his side for six weeks. Here, she tears up again at the thought of the long marriage she misses keenly.

Once, she lost her wedding rings for three months, finally discovering them while sweeping some popcorn kernels from under the machine at the bar.

“Everybody has fights, but we never had any knock-down, drag-out fights,” she says.

“But if they had,” Griffey says, lightening the mood again, “Madelyn would have won.”

Scotch and dentures

“Maennechor” means men’s choir in German. But these days, Griffey says, most of the singing happens only late at night when the beer has been flowing.


View the original article here

沒有留言:

張貼留言