Catfish 1

 As that undervalued philosopher Ricky Nelson once said,  ya can't please everyone so ya got to please yourself, and since none of my posts for the last month have pleased either of the dawgs I am going to tell you guys a story.  It's a pretty long story and here is the beginning.

 

So I was sitting at the bar at the Great Wall, kind of nursing my beer, kind of killing time until five o’clock when the guys with jobs would be coming in, thirsty and eager to talk to someone who wasn’t the boss, glad to see their pal Catfish, happy to set him up with a new full one, but then, out of nowhere I began having these thoughts, troubling thoughts.   

Troubling thoughts along the line of so what kind of life is this?  Same old guys, same old jokes, same old sponging, where is this ever getting me beyond the next beer?  What the hell was I doing in this town?  Where was this ever going to get me?  Just the same old shit everyday, sitting in the same damn bar, in the same damn bar stool even, talking to the same damn people I'd been talking to yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. 

 I needed, well I needed to do something different, but what?  I took a drink of beer and gave the matter a little thought.  I needed a big change.  I needed to leave town.  That would be the ticket.  .  But where could I go that would make any difference?  I didn’t really want to ask Itch the bartender who was kind of a smartass, but there was nobody else in the bar.

 I finished my beer, signaled for another one and as he set it before me I told him, "Itch, I gotta go."

 He looked over at the john.  "Well go then."

 "You asshole.  No I gotta go. I gotta get out of this town."

 "Where you gonna go?"

 "I don't know, I thought you’d tell me.  You're so smart, where do you think I oughta go?"

 "Where to go, where to go.  Where does one go, when one leaves this little hunk of heaven?"  Nice guy that Itch, but he could be awfully irritating sometimes.  "I suppose you could go home."

 "It's still happy hour," I protested.

 "No, Home, home.  LaCrosse isn't it?  The home of the very beer you're drinking now.  You know what Robert Frost said?"

 "No, I don't know what Robert Frost said."

 "He said home is where you go and they have to take you in."

 Well if that wasn't the stupidest thing I ever heard, but still I got to thinking about it. People would be glad to see me there.  Mom and Dad would be glad to put me up. Probably could get a job at the brewery.   I could look up my old buddies Deke and Mongo and the other guys, go fishing, drink beer, chase the women around.  So much better than sponging beers and talking to smartass bartenders.  I would be back where I started from, I could make a whole new start.  I could become, well who knows? 

But just then the door flew open and in walked Ted freed from mowing the lawns of the University and eager to wash away those mower fumes with a cold one and eager to hear a story from his old Pal Catfish.  He put up two fingers and Itch headed back to the tap. 

 Well tomorrow then, first thing in the morning I would be leaving Champaign and heading back to LaCrosse, God’s country.