| Beer
And Pitchers Ronnie Dee (c) Copyright 2025 by Ronnie Dee 
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 Photo by Egin Akyurt at Pexels. |
I've heard it said that beer is the staff of life. I love beer and I have been drinking it most of my life. As a child I would be given a few sips and then half a glass on special nights. I envied the kids from the middle ages who got to drink beer all the time because the water was unfit to drink. Since watching the beer trucks do their business at The Pub on 34th Street as a child, to hanging out and performing in The Pub Steakhouse on Fifth Street as an adult, beer was always my drink of choice.
As a matter of fact I had been buying and drinking beer regularly since I was eighteen. Though I looked like I was fourteen, I really had few problems buying beer. I had my first sit down beer with my buddy Jack, in the beer garden in Fontaine Ferry Park. At nineteen I was hanging out at the inappropriately named Old Timers Inn, which was virtually a teenage saloon at the corner of 30th and Chestnut.
It was just past the railroad viaduct that turned from Chestnut Street to River Park Drive. Every once in a while the police would stop by and most of the patrons would run into the women 's restroom. The waitress would come in at the cops' behest, look at us, smile and holler, "There's nobody in here," while a half dozen guys would be snickering and making good-natured faces at her. I don 't know how I found the place, but I'm glad I did. I could easily walk there, so I had no trouble getting home if I drank too much.
When you hang out in bars and drink a lot, trouble is always lurking around. One of the best donnybrooks I was in happened before I ever got in the place. It so happened that a bunch of us from work decided to have a miniature golf tournament. It was just to get together and do something. After the tourney we were to go to the Zanzibar for some beers. There were seven of us and following the tournament we headed for the Z Bar.
We were milling around near the entrance waiting for everyone to arrive when a gang of guys none of us knew came by, and somehow words were exchanged and suddenly they jumped on us and started fighting. I never liked being ganged on. Two friends and I got jumped by five or six guys outside of a bar in Dayton, Ohio where I tore my only suit and Bud and I got accosted by a mob at Valley High School. This time it was about tweIve on seven, minus two.
I saw Herm get hit in the back of the head and go down, then a guy hit me a glancing blow on the side of my head and I leaned back against a car parked right behind me at the curb and he swung at me again and I ducked that one and when I stood up again, he had already started in on Palsy P. who had been standing next to me. I set up shop by the car so no one could jump me from behind and I looked up to see two members of our crew (ergo the minus two) bolting for their cars. They reminded me of the cartoon people who, when panicked, hightailed it with their arms straight out and their legs spinning around like wheels. They tore for their cars, jumped in, started up and zoomed out of there without even looking back; leaving their companions to whatever fate was awaiting.
Meanwhile, we were already outnumbered and outsized and didn't know what was coming next. I saw Palsy holding onto his guy's wrists so he couldn't get hit, so the guy started kicking him and they kind of wandered off that way. I was looking around to see if anyone was coming at me and I saw Don fighting with one of them and Palsy ran by with the guy chasing him, kicking and cursing at him as Palsy ran pell-mell into the street with his pants leg, ripped from stem to stern, flapping in the breeze, and car tires screeching, and horns honking as he dashed madly right into the traffic.
Charlie was in the middle of the sidewalk, holding off some guy with his left arm while holding his right arm and hand, which held the envelope with the tourney winnings, away from his body as the guy tried to beat his chest and back. By this time, some of the folks in the Z Bar came out to see what all of the commotion was about and shouted, "What's going on out here," but made no move to join the fray. Our attackers sensed that they were drawing too much attention, and stopped the onslaught to retreat down the street.
We never knew who they were or why they assaulted us. No one was seriously injured except Don, who suffered a broken cheekbone. He came to work with his mouth all wired up and he was fuming mad. He approached me and said, "Hey Ronnie, do you still have that shotgun?" I had been in possession (it wasn't mine) of a sawed off shotgun for a few weeks.
"Yes," I replied.
He said, "Can you bring it and pick me up tonight?"
"Yes," I again replied, dreading the thought of it, but what could I do now? I couldn't let my man down, but I was really afraid of what he might do. He was still very angry.
So I pick him up at 8:00 and he snarls, "I hope I find that guy tonight. I'm going to blow his freaking head off."
I was afraid that was what he was going to say. We decided to hit every bar up and down Preston Street in that area because they had been on foot when they encountered us. So Don and I stopped at every bar we found on Preston that night and thank God, we didn't find any of the assailants. The next day I made sure to return the gun to its rightful owner, and I didn't want to see it for a while.
We never knew who our attackers were or why they did it. The two runners got a lot of ribbing and we held no grudges, but it was still desertion under fire, and you don't forget that.
I used to joke around and tell people that a fitting way to die would be to get killed in a barroom brawl. Then it almost happened and I quit saying that. It started innocently enough when I was in the Storefront Congregation, my usual hangout on Bardstown Road, knocking back a few and listening to some good down home music. A bunch of us were lounging around the bar just inside the door when several motorcycle guys came barging in the door. The proprietor, Kenny, was working the door and he informed them that they could come in, but they would have to remove their colors. Their colors being the sleeveless denim jackets with the name of the club and various patches they all wear with undeserved hubris. They refused to remove the colors, and my man, Kenny, told them to leave. They again refused and started some pushing and shoving.
One of my pals had the foresight to see what was coming and duck behind the bar just before it all started. Guys up front started pushing back and then fists started flying all around me once again. The next instant it was a full blown brawl. Guys were stumbling and lurching around, swinging at whoever was there. I was caught right in the middle of things and had no choice but to join in the fray.
An enemy was knocked to the floor in front of me and I began trying to kick him, but I quit when I realized I was wearing a flimsy pair of old sneakers, which rendered that a fruitless enterprise. It was then when I noticed a cyclist beating on the bar with a beer pitcher, trying to break it. A couple of guys sort of fell into me, knocking me back against the bar again and I caught a glimpse of something on my left. I quickly turned away and received a blow to the left side of my head, just behind my ear. It was the beer pitcher.
The beer pitchers in this place were the old-fashioned, heavy glass variety. It hit my head with terrific force and shattered in a million pieces, with a loud explosion. That suddenly caught everyone's attention. We were all just standing there when the police came charging in. The gang was soon ushered out and as the cops were leaving, someone said, "Hey, this guy's really bleeding here" and one of the cops cracked, "Aw, he'll live," and they all left.
I will never understand why I was not knocked unconscious from the blow. Not only was I not knocked out, I never even felt it, but I looked down and saw that I was bleeding profusely. I thought, "Man, I need to try to clean this up," and headed for the restroom. I was bleeding from my head, of course, but that was all I could see. When I got back up front I noticed a trail of bloody footprints behind me. I was in no pain at all, so I couldn't understand where all the blood was originating. A young woman I had often seen in the bar, but didn't really know said, "Ronnie, you are really bleeding. You need to go to the hospital now. Come on, I'll take you."
She brought her VW bug up and we went
to the ER straight away. When we got there I started to get
out
of the car and my knees buckled. I don't know how they knew,
but they had a wheelchair waiting for me.
They cut my shirt off, which was now colored solid red, and one of the nurses exclaimed, "Oh, my God, get Doctor Wilson." Someone else said, "Huh?" And she repeated with emphasis, "I said get Doctor Wilson!"
Now when an ER nurse looks at you and gasps, "Oh, my God," it gets your attention. So I looked down and saw this little white tube sticking out of my chest, spritzing blood every second or so. They laid me out on a gurney and one group started working on my head and another group on my chest. I could feel the blood from my head literally pouring out onto the gurney. I begged them not to cut my hair off and they actually did a superior job with that. At first I thought I was dying because I had lost copious amounts of blood and they weren't giving me any more.
They collectively got the blood stopped and then rolled me off to some interns to sew me up. One of the female interns was thrilled when she set a new personal best with thirty four stitches. Seventeen in various locations on my head and a like number well spaced on my chest. When the guy whacked me in the head, the pitcher disintegrated, but the handle was left in his hand. It was then sharp as a knife on the end and he stabbed me in the chest. My ribs deflected the blow but it poked a hole between two ribs and then sliced down to make a nice slash. It looked like I had open heart surgery.
Kenny showed up from the bar and gave me an old shirt to wear as mine had literally been cut off of me. My jeans, shoes and underwear were soaked with blood and very uncomfortable.
I would be picking minute granules of glass out of my head for several years.
As we left the ER the last thing I saw was a young black man sitting patiently on a gurney with what looked like a Bowie knife sticking right out of the top of his thigh.
To
everyone's astonishment I was back in the bar the next night. I mean
it takes more than a motorcycle gang, a blow to the head and a
stabbing to keep me away. The young woman who took
me to
the ER was gone and I don't think I ever saw her again. But I felt
bad about bleeding all over her car and I owe her a great debt. If
she hadn't done what she did, I would have gone home and quietly bled
to death. I thought about that little vein, or artery, for a long
time, just steadily pumping out blood, and pumping out blood, until
there was none left.