“Kicked Out of the Bar” By Lynn Bueling
I’m not one of the Greensboro Four
who sat at the Woolworth lunch counter
and caused the big civil rights ruckus.
I was just a five-year old kid who
sat on a high stool beside his dad
while he ordered a beer and Harry
Salzwedel said Arnold, he can’t be
in here anymore. I suppose Chet
Noice, the sheriff, warned him the state passed
a law saying minors can’t enter bars
where booze is sold and he full well meant
to enforce it. This happened a good
long while ago, and there I was, kicked
out of a bar. It was the first time,
the only time, if memory serves
me right. I couldn’t see over the top
of that bar anyway, but those years
after the war that place teemed with life;
veterans who hadn’t lost theirs came here.
Fly strips hung from the ceiling, fans turned
slowly, pool balls rolled and clicked, and church
keys opened the large doors to liquid
sanctuaries of hallelujah
or quiet cloisters of dark solitude.
On Saturday summer nights we played
on the street outside that bar and heard
the din coming through its open door.
A magnet, it tugged hard at my core
and I spent a youth’s lifetime yearning
to come of age so I could enter
and share the wonders in that sanctum.
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