The Town Drunk

Back Story

I guess you probably been wunderin’ about that Town Drunk Counter over in the side bar.

So, lemme ‘splain you what it means and how it came about. I figger that at least one of you might be getting curiouser about it so as Larry the Cable Guy says…”Git ‘er dun.”

I will freely admit that the concept of a counter was shamelessly ripped off from a friend of Neil’s named Jodi Etenberg…although we’ve never met her in person she’s like a lot of blogger friends who we correspond with and only know through the internet. Jodi is this little bitty gal who is a recovering lawyer from Montreal via New York…she quit her job and the rat race in 2008 and travels the world blogging about travel and food…you can check out her site at http://legalnomads.com.

Anyway; she has this counter on her site that is known as the Bird Crap Counter which chronicles the many times that birds have crapped on her since she’s been traveling. Most of the stories are hilarious and while Neil has been crapped on once by a bird since we hit the road it isn’t a very good story.

Connie’s experiences with people we meet in bars, however…is a whole ‘nuther thing. She seems to have this predilection for attracting really strange people…mostly in bars. I guess we’re hanging out in the wrong kind of bars that are inhabited by weirdo’s…but then stuffy, nose in the air bars where they sip champagne cocktails have never really been our style…we’re more of an Irish Pub Dive Bar kind of family.  The first (and even the second) time this happened we just laughed it off but by the time it happened the third time we decided we needed to record these for posterity.

There was one time back when we still were living in Fairfax with a drunk guy at our local watering hole The Auld Shebeen…he wanted to call the cops on Neil for looking down Connie’s cleavage…but we weren’t traveling yet so I didn’t add him to the list; mostly because i couldn’t remember all of the details that would have made it a good story.

Anyhoo…most of the stories are pretty good so I thought I would chronicle them here for your amusement. I’ll post them below here as they happen and will put them in reverse chronological order so the newest escapades are at the top.

Current Counter Value: 7

Town Drunk #7

Number 7 came about almost 3 years since Mikey in Casey IL in July 2016…July 3 was the date for ol’ Darren.

So…Darren. We’re sitting there at 2 of the 3 seats at the bar in Point Restaurant…Neil’s having a very nice Black Butte Porter and Connie is working on some strange concoction named Mamba by Gilgamesh Brewery…this is an ale made with black tea and tangerine peel…she liked it but I gotta tellya it was pretty gack…didn’t taste like beer at all but then she likes those gose sour things too so whatever. Anyways…we’re sitting there and this inebriated fellow…it is the Town Drunk after all…he wanders up to the bar next to her and asks the bartender for another Bloody Mary…but he’s got all kinda special requests for her…he wants 4 stalks of asparagus, 6 olives, a lime wedge, and 2 jalapeño slices in it. He’s obviously done this before…and pestered this bartender before…as she says Ok and slowly makes his drink. He is also ordering some sort of coffee thing for his buddy sitting over in the corner at the one armed bandit or video poke machine or whatever it was…but he has to turn around and ask him three separate times before he remembers it. He’s waiting on his drink…and he turns to Connie and sez “I’m the only guy you know that got throwed in Jail in Yellowstone National Park.” Turns out he got arrested for drunk and disorderly in the park on Friday evening…ended up in the jail in West Yellowstone I guess, don’t think the park actually has a jail but mebbe it does…and spent the weekend in the hoosegow as the judge wasn’t in until Monday. Here’s a shot of ol’ Darren and Connie…clearly 3 sheets to the wind as you can tell. 

 

He slurped that drink down right quick…delivered the coffee whatever it was to his buddy over in the corner past her right shoulder…and went out for a smoke. Said he was coming back for another…but 45 minutes later when we left he was still AWOL.

Town Drunk #6

Ah yes…Mikey at Down The Street in Casey IL. We stopped in Casey on the way from Elkhart IN to Junction City KS to get some rig work done and after seeing the whole series of World’s Largest Things here in Casey we stopped in for Happy Hour before dinner. Mikey immediately introduced himself…and by the time we were halfway through a brew he bought us another one We chatted with him for an hour before heading off to dinner. He’s retired, lived in Casey for 40 years with his wife, and offered to have his wife bake us some blueberry cobbler and either bring it to our RV park or the bar depending. He was plenty friendly…even though we had to get him to repeat about half of what he said because he was so drunk…and the bar was friendly as well so we will probably stop by for another brew or three before we head out of town.

Town Drunk #5

This guy was named Robert and was obviously attracted by Connie’s ponytail in addition to having some mental problems. He was sitting next to Connie at Robinson’s Pub in Belfast, Northern Ireland…and kept trying to engage her in conversation. I think he was trying to pick her up despite the fact that she was (a) American and clearly (b) with the other American (Neil). She tried ignoring him…so he pulled her ponytail and then said “Sorry.” like that was supposed to make it OK that he had done so. Later on she caught him staring at her head and hair from about a foot away. Freaked her out I’m telling you. Robert was closely followed by another character named Ronnie who offered that he was gay and asked Neil what American’s thought of gays…or maybe he was trying to pick Neil up…and didn’t get a clue from the woman sitting next to Neil. 

Town Drunk #4

I’m going to put this one in the Town Drunk counter although upon further review as they say in the NFL…this guy wasn’t actually drunk since he is some sort of fundamentalist and while there isn’t anything particularly wrong with that…but I’m sure that alcohol has never touched his lips.

Anyhow; a couple weeks ago we were headed out kayaking early in the morning. After we were outside Connie had to go back in the rig for something…and when she grabbed the latch on the door something alive moved under her fingers. She shrieked like a girl (not quite as good as Carol Fellis but that’s a whole ‘nother story) and yelled “Oh my god!”. It turned out that it was just a little tree frog but it had scared the living daylights out of her. Neil was practically rolling on the ground he was laughing so hard, the neighbors though it was funny as well and we were preparing to go on about our business.

Well, about this time Mr. Weirdo shows up. Must have been all of 110 pounds soaking wet although if you shaved off his Grizzly Adams beard he would have likely lost 15 pounds. Dressed in overalls, a red flannel wife-beater T-shirt (or maybe it was long johns, I couldn’t be sure), and boots. He starts in telling her how he overheard her on his morning constitutional and how she’s taking the Lord’s name in vain (which was technically true I guess)…and she said as to how it particularly startled her and that was the reason. The guy slowly nods his head in understanding…and that’s when things got weird and he went straight to bat-shiat crazy. He went down this tangent (tangent nothing, he was completely on some other planet somewhere, that ain’t no darned tangent says Neil) where he claimed that saying golly or gee whiz or gosh or goodness or oh my gosh were also taking the Lord’s name in vain since all of those were just substitutions for God and therefore and henceforth were Bad™.

At this point Neil started hearing the theme from The Twilight Zone in his head so he hopped in the bed of BAT, worked on lashing the kayak down for our trip, and generally tried to alternate between ignoring Mr. Weirdo and insulting him hoping he would leave. He thought about telling him that we were Satanist-Druid-Wiccans and inviting him to a moonlight at midnight frog sacrifice, blood drinking orgy and entrails reading but decided against it. He went on for another 5 minutes or so until Neil finally told Connie to mount up since we were leaving. Funny though; since then Neil’s seem him a couple of times wandering around the campground and he keeps trying to make friends…despite Neil’s just ignoring him.

It takes all kinds I guess. While saying Oh my God is technically taking the Lord’s name in vain she was somewhat startled and I have no idea where that whole golly/gee whiz thing came from other than way, way, way out in left field somewhere past Elm Street and halfway to Strangeville.

Neil wanted a picture; but Mr. Weirdo said No, that the camera would capture his soul if I took his picture. Just imagine a 5′ 4″ 110 pound Grizzly Adams with big, crazy, bulging glassy eyes and you’ll have the look about right.

Town Drunk #3

I don’t remember much about this one…he was just a guy who wanted to give her peace signs and show her his Eagles (band, not the team) T-shirt because they were playing the Eagles song Take it Easy. Suddenly they both broke out laughing and decided this must be a sign from heaven…so now we’ll be keeping up the Town Drunk Counter. We were in a little town named Oneonta NY when this one happened at a place named Legends…some sort of biker redneck bar (except for the fact that Neil isn’t sure they have redneck bars in upstate NY). We had headed out for a night on the town and it turns out that there is very little night life in Oneonta NY so we ended up at this place.

Town Drunk #2

While we were up visiting Acadia National Park in Ellsworth ME in fall 2012 we were in this Irish Pub named Finn’s Irish Pub one night. When we arrived at the bar there were three seats left down at the end…we took two of them leaving the stool in front of the waitress station (you know the one with the little containers of lemon and lime slices, olives, cherries, and the other drink garnishes)…and sure enough, out of the blue who sits down but the town drunk. He was regaling Connie with all these racist tales while she was doing her best to ignore him…after 20 minutes or so he got the idea and moved along. Again, not too amusing of a story.

Town Drunk #1

We were in Red Hook NY right after we started full timing and decided to go downtown to have dinner one night. Connie got dressed up in her LBD (little black dress) and they went out for Date Nite. First stop was the Beecham Inn which is supposedly the oldest inn in America. They had an attached tavern with Mothers Milk Stout from a local microbrewery on tap. Yum. While they were enjoying their first pint “Bobby” introduced himself, er, I mean latched on to her like a drowning man. Aiyaii, what a loser he was. Larry the bartender told us while Bobby was out having a smoke that he had only served him two but Bobby had clearly had a half dozen or so before that as he was three sheets to the wind. At least he was a friendly drunk if a bit clingy. Wanted to tell you all about his world travels, condo in Vero Beach, and stuff. Larry the bartender told us on his next smoke break that none of that was true but never really gave us the rest of the story. We finally left the tavern just to get away from him and went across the street to Fosters Tavern where once again they found beer on tap. We had to hide from Bobby to get there though…he was hanging out in front of the inn and we sure didn’t want him to follow us. The beer was only Sam Adams Oktoberfest which isn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as the stout. The burgers and London Broil dinner were excellent though and after eating and drinking they headed home for dessert. They did meet this nice couple of older women…you know the kind…too much makeup, hanging out in bars, and flirting with everybody. They were at least not drunk however, and were pretty friendly besides so we had good conversation with them.