[Old Philadelphia Bar on 7/9/17] Note: This piece from 12/26/12 should have been in my last self-published book, Lost America, but I had forgotten all about it. I don’t remember much of what I’ve written. In the 1980's and 90's, even a klutz like me could find work as a manual laborer. I painted houses, washed windows, cleaned apartments and offices. At my first house painting job, I propped a ladder upside down against the wall, don't laugh, but wasn't let go. Once I was so hungover, I had to climb down five or six times to throw up, and still wasn't fired. My boss, Joe LeBlanc, just laughed it off. He even paid me a full day's wage and told me to go home. When times were good, everyone made out OK and was more generous. They drank more, tipped bartenders more. After work, we often ducked into The Office, a skanky strip joint and certainly no “gentlemen’s club,” before heading to McGlinchey's for Rolling Rock and Jameson. At The Office, a black chick grinned, "I've heard you Chinese guys can have sex, like, a hundred times in a row?" I didn't have the heart to disabuse her of that invigorating and lovely notion.
Thanks Linh, another gem on life in a big American city. Sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes they're depressing but none of them have ever given me the inclination to visit as island life just seems so much more sane. You wrote this 12 years ago - hard to fathom how it must be there now.
The all you can eat stripmall buffets are a poor man's oasis. Anymore, I have a difficult time going into establishments where I'm served, especially after Covid. Corporate options still exist but I was avoiding those places before Covid. The non corporate American eateries have suffered and many no longer exist or are struggling.
My first "real" job was washing dishes for $4.25 an hour at a hometown buffet called Miller's Home Cafe. The "Homo" changed my life. A cast of true, addled characters came and went through that place. Homemade noodles and sausage, fried chicken, chicken livers and onions, a bar of old school mayonnaise based "salads", bacon bits, croutons and pudding based deserts. I still dream about the place sometimes. The "Home" part of the sign painted on the brick side of the building was exposed after George sold the place. It was exposed after the old siding was removed, but was painted over within the last year or two. The last vestige of the place. There used to be lines around the block before the advent of chain dining.
The newer Asian and "International" type buffets have been a haunt of mine ever since. If one wants to enjoy the American underclasses which I can't help but love, these are the places to fill up. One of the few places where I can enjoy humanity anymore, usually for less than fifteen bucks.
There was an anthropologist who hypothesized some years ago that in order for civilization to be sustained humans needed alcohol to reduce the levels of stress that living in a civilized society imposed on the individual (honestly, I'm not making this up although I can't recall the anthropologist's name). https://academic.oup.com/book/40545
Thanks Linh, another gem on life in a big American city. Sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes they're depressing but none of them have ever given me the inclination to visit as island life just seems so much more sane. You wrote this 12 years ago - hard to fathom how it must be there now.
The all you can eat stripmall buffets are a poor man's oasis. Anymore, I have a difficult time going into establishments where I'm served, especially after Covid. Corporate options still exist but I was avoiding those places before Covid. The non corporate American eateries have suffered and many no longer exist or are struggling.
My first "real" job was washing dishes for $4.25 an hour at a hometown buffet called Miller's Home Cafe. The "Homo" changed my life. A cast of true, addled characters came and went through that place. Homemade noodles and sausage, fried chicken, chicken livers and onions, a bar of old school mayonnaise based "salads", bacon bits, croutons and pudding based deserts. I still dream about the place sometimes. The "Home" part of the sign painted on the brick side of the building was exposed after George sold the place. It was exposed after the old siding was removed, but was painted over within the last year or two. The last vestige of the place. There used to be lines around the block before the advent of chain dining.
The newer Asian and "International" type buffets have been a haunt of mine ever since. If one wants to enjoy the American underclasses which I can't help but love, these are the places to fill up. One of the few places where I can enjoy humanity anymore, usually for less than fifteen bucks.
There was an anthropologist who hypothesized some years ago that in order for civilization to be sustained humans needed alcohol to reduce the levels of stress that living in a civilized society imposed on the individual (honestly, I'm not making this up although I can't recall the anthropologist's name). https://academic.oup.com/book/40545
Nice one. I wonder where they all are now, and how they survived the scamdemic?
Brings back the memories
This story reminds me of this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a3gY_AAsOY