Nostalgia Lane (Part 6)

04/19/07

I was about ten years old when Daddy decided he had had enough of the coal mines. He was 50 years old and becoming a little nervous about going inside the hillsides.SO,... he decided to be a tavern owner. He had an extra building right beside the house and he got the liquor license and everything ready to begin.He got the juke box, an old antique cash register, the liquor license, restaurant license, beer, whiskey and wine and almost immediately it filled up with home town people, husbands and wives wanting to have a good time on the weekends. Naturally, I was always there pestering. My brother and his wife came home for quite awhile from California and she taught us how to do the jitterbug there in the backroom of the tavern. What a life and what a time!My best friend and I would help scrub this very large dancefloor along with my mother. We put brillo pads on the bottoms of our feet and scrubbed the dirt off, then my mother would rinse the cloths out for us and we would get on our knees and rinse. On New Year's eve, my mother would make kielbasi, saure kraut, buns, hotdogs. Daddy would get the hats, confetti, balloons and other noisemakers and what a time everyone would have.When I would walk over to tell him a message from my mother, everyone had to give the 10 year old a hug or a kiss on the cheek, maybe just out of respect for my dad!! I don't know, but I loved them all. These people and my dad and mother made up my growing years. From age 10 to the age of 17 when I left home, these were wonderful times.My dad did not drink but he loved the business. There were good times and there were bad times but he was never down inside a mine again!