Daily Nebraskan
Page 11
Outbound for drinks and the krawlhome
Thursday, Juno 11, 1937
By Kevin Cowan
Staff Reporter
There you are sitting with a couple
cronies in your usual bar: O'Rourkes,
The Zoo, Chesterfields. You know, the
krawl of the brown-bottle circuit. It's
not the weekend, fortunately, so there's
no weekend warriors to compete with
for a good table. Al, the smilin' bar
tender, is standing behind the bar poli
shin' glasses quietly to himself.
"This is boring," you belch. "We see
the same people on the same day,
drinking the same old shoe polish.
Christ, the same guy is playing "I
Robot.' "
That boredom is the opportunity
the mistress of tavern innovation.
Beyond the domain of the haggard
bar-vultures that nest in the downtown
bars of Lincoln, lies a different breed of
bar the small town bar. And if
approached in a pseudo-mature fashion,
a small town bar krawl might be con
sidered one of the benefits of hedonis
tic pursuit in the midwest.
I know, I know, Mothers Against
Drunk Drivers might deem me worthy
of hanging for saying this, but there are
ways to leave the city, safely, and have
an "intoxicating" bar krawl.
First, find a car. Sometimes that's
the majority of the problem all
ambition and no means.
With cushy 74 Bonneville en route,
choose a direction. Make it simple on
the first krawl: north, south, west or
east. Decent bars lie on all points of the
map.
Let's say tonight the compass needle
or map or the wind pulls you north. It's
about 15 or 20 minutes to the Ding-a-ling
bar in Raymond. A highly ruralized
"hotspot," though the decorum is that
of a mid-seventies Holiday Inn lounge.
Rivalous all-you-can-eat, fish fry
competition with another town pump
down the street on Thursday, might be
deserving of bar krawlers attendance.
A drink, a pitcher or a shot. On to
another town.
sal from town to town. Whether you
develop a fondness for a particular bar
or bartender or not, the idea is to break
away from inertia and move.
Right. On to Valparaiso.
Harry's Tavern. A corker of a rural
pub. An elongated, always well-lit,
semi-conservative, tavern. The bar
tender, Harry, of course, when talked to
in a rational conversational tone, minus
the college public relations babble, is
full of all sorts of bar chatter.
The most unique feature of Harry's
tavern is the handy-crafts kept on dis
play. Duane Pecka, a retired resident
in Valparaiso builds exquisitely detailed
tractors, trains and trucks from used
beer arid pop cans. Now, I don't imme
diately go topsy-turvy over every Ronco
knit-o-matic or any other such craft,
but this guy really does a good job.
Maybe you should go see for yourself.
Skuttle on up northeast to the happ
iest town near Lincoln (aside from
Denton); WA-HOO.
That's one of the tricks of small town Down the empty Tuesday streets to
bar krawl . Only stay for one, or at the the Last Chance Saloon. A type of pub
most, two drinks. The nice thing about that combines the old death-riddled
alcohol is the taste is damn near univer- west with a sense of humor. Iron-rod jail
bars gate the front of the bar, a pay
phone coffin rests in peace at the end.
The young bar executives who run the
tavern macabre tend to initiate conver
sation immediately: "Where ya from?"
and that sort of thing. Best to order a
large, completely frosty mug o' beer
and banter about tavern jargon.
But let's say, instead of North, all
omens and rhetorical debate lends the
krawl to a southernly direction.
The Roca bar is seedy on the outside,
clean on the inside, down to the soil
and grain, pub. Nothin' much normally
goes on, says the early-elderly bar
tendress. It's a nice quiet place to
begin a small town bar binge.
Up around the road about 1 1 miles is
the Princeton Tavern. No "foo-foo"
drinks here. Vodka or whiskey. Of
course, Ray the bartenderowner also
stocks a reasonable line of mainstream
domestic beers as well. The really
intriguing factor in the Princeton
Tavern is the archaic, semi-circular
bar. Not many of those to be found. And
Ray? Ray's one of those Depression kids
with a working-class ethic. You have to
be mildy plying before he'll talk (ask
about horse races). His small town
humor will please your overly-urban
ears.
Well, there's two of the four points of
the compass. My binge cohorts and I
have traversed all lour. I could go
through and spoon-feed the experience
to you, but I think this best be left up to
krawling initiative.
P.S. A couple of hints for small town
krawls:
1) The driver should not, as a mere
guidelines, drink more than four or five
beers and a couple of shots in the four
and a half hours that bar krawls
endure.
2) Only take three or four cronies on
the binge. A large mob of young college
transients will put any small town bar
tender on the immediate defensive.
They'll probably serve you, but it doesn't
please them an immense amount and it
kind of destroys the purpose of wanting
to get away from the same old faces.
So drink in the bottomless dregs,
move forth on to different horizons or. . .
stay in O'Rourkes and purge a few
more beers for the walk home.
Lincoln Transportation System Proudly Announces
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HOW CAN YOU GET BUS
SCHEDULES?
Schedules are available wherever
passports are sold or just call the
LTS information center at 476-1234.
They will even mail you schedules
upon request!
NEW, IMPROVED BUS SERVICE!
WHAT IS LTS?
The Lincoln Transportation System offers city bus service
25 routes including special shuttle service between
downtown and East Campus.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Regular cash fare is 654, but the most economical fare is
the monthly passport only $20 gives you unlimited
rides on LTS.
i ...
WHERE CAN YOU BUY PASSPORTS?
Passports; are sold at the Student Union, Nebraska
Bookstore, major banks, 1st Federal outlets, Hy-Vee and
IGA stores to name a few. .
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WE GIVE STUDENTS A LIFT
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