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clinking glasses and broken hearts, part 2

Word soon spread around the Street that The Caboose was the hangout for the best and the brightest.  You had to have flair to hold your own at the bar rail. The majority of Dennis’ clients were floor brokers, upstairs partners, secretaries, bankers and insurance executives. Last but not least were several lawyers who spent more time in The Caboose than in court.  These attorneys, who would bill a client for asking the time of day, gave information free of charge to regulars of The Caboose.  The brotherhood of boozers.

The Pope of Pine Street tended his flock with loving care. As busy as the place always was, Dennis knew most everyone and if you came often enough, you enjoyed the privilege of his full range of services: father confessor, judge and jury, psychologist, mediator, job consultant, patient listener, and, most of all, friend, especially to the regulars.

The pinnacle was having a nickname bestowed upon you by Dennis. There was: Fast Freddy, Banker Ben, Lucky Louie, Mr. Money, Bennie Bucks, Stiff Sam, Henpecked Hank, Lovely Louise, Rusty Nails Rita, and. Tiny Tina. There was: Oil Henry (one of the Pope’s proudest nicknames, as he didn’t think many of the regulars got this literary entendre), The Boss (there were a few of those, and Dennis had to be nimble if two came in together), and Mr. Bow Tie (ditto). Also: Slugger, Too Tall, Too Wide, Button Down, Red, Dutch, Shoe Shine, and Tassles.

Regulars ruled the roost, but newcomers were welcome with open arms, especially if they had a good story to tell.  Many a conversation at The Caboose began with “Hey, did you hear what happened to…” or “You won’t believe what I saw….”  Stories swirled in this collision of booze and bravado, fellowship and oneups-menship.

This was what The Caboose meant to hundreds of men and women: Refuge, release, and a place to swap stories about good or bad luck, good or bad love, sports, money, heroes and villains, and often just too outrageous not to be true. More tomorrow.

clinking glasses and broken hearts, part 1

It is said that Wall Street runs on adrenaline and alcohol.

Every evening for decades, an army of suits and skirts has descended on noisy pubs serving beer and shots to elegant places featuring the finest wines, looking to continue or burn off the high of another frantic trading day.  Many continue to discuss work, looking for some inside track on the next day, but most just want to wind down, gossip, or simply delay their commute home.

In the Fifties, The Caboose was a landmark, conveniently located just a hundred steps from the Exchange. The interior was typical, narrow and deep, with a thirty foot mahogany bar down one side and wood-paneled walls sporting pictures of old steam-engine trains down the other.

The character and clientele of any successful bar is the reflection of the head bartender, and this was especially true of The Caboose. Dennis Donahue was a legend, known around the area as The Pope of Pine Street. Some also called him St. Dennis for the way he forgave the sinners and soothed the angels, and for pouring liberally.

And his patrons drank liberally. Stopping in for one drink before the train home often became an evening of loud talk about work, sports, sex, or all three. Some stayed until closing time, but anyone who complained that the last drink Dennis served the night before had done them in got this reply: “Don’t go blaming me! When you’re run over by a twenty car freight train, it’s not the caboose that kills you.” 

Dennis was Black-Irish; dark hair, blue eyes and a tall, lean body.  He had been born and bred in New York’s Hell's Kitchen, where the requirements for survival were the ability to think fast and use your fists. Dennis was a master of both, although he preferred to live by his wits. He started out in the business at the age of ten, sweeping out a local bar on Sunday mornings.  The first thing Dennis did when he bought the Caboose, after years of working at other places, was remove the black-and-white television set and the juke box.  "This is a drinking establishment. I don't want beer sippers in here distracted by baseball games or listening to goddamn music."  The next thing he did was remove all the measuring devices on the bottles.  "That's like asking Picasso to use paint-by-number canvases," Fast Freddy noted.  His practiced hand and eye could gauge the proper strength for a regular's first drink.  Some needed a stiff jolt to loosen up while others needed to be brought down from their day more carefully. 

More on Monday on the habitués of this establishment.

Clinking Glasses And Broken Hearts, Introduction

A menagerie of characters can be found in Bob Petersen’s Wall Street stories: A lady’s man and his unbelievable safe deposit box contents. The mysterious beauty who stopped Wall Street in her tracks. Investors relying on racing results or astrological signs.

Bob worked on the New York Stock Exchange back in the Fifties, and he’d regale his wife and friends with tales of the shenanigans he witnessed on the Exchange Floor or ones he heard about after work at his favorite bar, The Caboose. His wife, Marilyn, found them all typed up in his desk upon his death. She sent them to a literary agent but Marilyn passed away before they could be published, but Bob and Marilyn’s daughter has given me the approval to share them here.

Bob was no John Cheever, whose lyrical eye captured the sometimes desperate lives of Fifties businessmen in hats and topcoats.  No, Bob’s stories are more Everyman, and they are funnier than Cheever’s while still quite poignant, and like Cheever, he brings that time alive again for us now. I suspect much of what Bob recounted still goes on, with only the width of the tie and length of the skirt having changed, many times over.

These stories reflect the times and they are not politically correct. You may smile and cringe in equal measure, but the legends of the regulars at the Caboose live on in these, at times, tall tales. Whether to cement their bonds or exaggerate their deeds, the men and women of bar known as The Caboose shared these stories with each other, and Bob got them down on paper.

These stories are supposedly based on actual events. In recounting these tales, Bob would tell his wife and friends, “And it’s all true. It really happened that way.” Let’s see, shall we? The first story tomorrow.

fathers

Let me be the first to say that, well, dads (myself included) can be just, well, weird at times.

the rule of 7

I've heard it said that if you change something in your life - little things, like moving a trash can near a desk - you still go to the old location at least 7 times. I'm up to 5.

soccer fini

I can no longer just separate the game of soccer and its fans' racist behavior around the world. The recent events in Paris are too much. There is no joy in the beautiful game for me any longer.

Change the world?

Was talking to Margaret Maupin of Tattered Cover, and we were musing about the days of the Whole Earth Catalog. She said she wished she had a good 100 ways to change the world paperback to put out on the front counter. I said we had a 500 Ways to Change the World from the Global Ideas Bank. Too many? Still, the Global Ideas site is interesting.

My very own ISBN

Take a peek at the first 2 chapters of my book, just out in paperback.

The musical 2-1-1 code

I’ve written about this before, in print - not here, and didn’t get a satisfactory answer. Once again, I’m like the last to get the memo. I never knew until recently that almost all pop songs follow the 2-1-1 pattern. 2 pairs of verse and chorus, then a portion that deviates a lot or a little in speed, words or pitch, and then back to verse and chorus. Who had this idea first, or is it just natural in all music to have the counterpoint to the main thrust of the song – a break, a change, a step out of the pattern, before returning to the central theme. I don’t know why I find this so fascinating. Does anyone have any thoughts or insight to share on this matter?

Judge a book by its lover

Tom Cambell of Regulator in Durham emailed the following to me, and my reaction was that word-of-mouth can be phrased as Judging a book by its lover. “Came back to the store last evening for the inaugural meeting of an in-store book group. At one point, for some reason, the leader of the group asked the folks how they decided what books to read. No less than 3 out of about 15 folks said they simply got recommendations from sources they had come to trust, and that was all they needed and wanted.”

Still, the job I really want is naming the 'staff' on Car Talk. Their latest best one? Their resident humorist: Odessa Goodone.