This is super short, but given all of the bad news of late, I thought that my fellow Kossies who love culture and learning would get a kick out of this.
During the week when I am not working for a cleaner environment I enjoy playing a little pool. I was never one for the yuppie way of life and then ten years ago I met a group of bikers and started hanging at one of their bars. This place used to be a "Men Only" stag watering hole. No women and no blacks. I am not sure when that changed but I do know it was later than you would expect, late 70's or so. Then for years it was a kind of rough place, lots of drugs were bought and sold there and still no black people were welcome. That lasted until around ten years ago and was around the time that I started going there.
I have watched the evolution of the regulars that have literally grown up going to this bar and black customers. Needless to say it has been interesting. Not only are there cultural differences, but age differences as well. The music on the digital jukebox is constantly changing: Skynrd, Jay-z, Eminem, Bocephus, Megadeath, you will hear it all in the course of an evening.
Every once in awhile you might hear a comment not worth repeating, but those usually come from the handfull of sixty-something men who remember when they had the place to themselves and overall everyone gets along.
So when the new owner took over he had a problem with the bouncers. They were the bikers and they bounced for free, no questions asked. Unfortunately they would on occassion throw a couple of fists against each other: too much Bud and Jack will do that to brothers. This lead the new owner to decide to hire bouncers.
One of them is quiet black man, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties at most. I don't know him very well. He usually works weekend nights and I am ususally there during the week. Recently however, one of my fellow pool playing friends did and this is what she reported to me.
"Hey Chill, Did you know that Duane is fluent in Latin?"
"Huh?" I say with great eloquence. "Bouncer Duane?"
"Yeah, he is self-taught in Latin, says that he loves ancient languages. He is a high school graduate, but no college and he taught himself Latin, how cool is that?"
Then comes the best part of the conversation...
"And now he is teaching himself Ancient Sumerian."
I cannot tell you how darn happy hearing this made me. Someone teaching himself something just for the love of learning. Something that won't make him a dime (unless he has a grander plan that he didn't reveal to my GF). And I have been teaching myself Spanish and thought that was an accomplishment. Sheesh.
I am not big on the yuppie bars as I said earlier: you expect to meet people who are well-traveled and have a higher degree or two and probably speak a bit of a foreign tongue, but my little melting pot, former stag bar has layers to peel.