The Rise and Fall of the Halfmast Tavern

    It was party time. The Halfmast Tavern was now officially under new management. Miss Kitty Longbranch and her business partner and bartender Dacey May held official title to the Halfmast and the whole gang got together for a Bar Warming Party.
     There was a lot of discussion about whether to invite Cujo Mike to something called a bar warming party. The concern was over Cujo's tendency to light fires at inopportune moments. It was finally decided that a "designated douser" be appointed to watch over him and make sure that he did not succomb to the temptation of turning it into a "hot time in the old bar tonight" party.
     Miss Kitty spared no expense on the bash. In honor of the re-founding of the Halfmast, beer was available at the original 1999 prices. Cocktail sausages were available at 25 cents a link and Miss Penny Hainey unearthed some of her old toast recipes from her days as chief chef at the ill-fated Temple of Toast. The bar was piled as high as you could see with slices of toast of all imaginable varieties. White, wheat, pumpernickle, Russian rye, sourdough and an invention of mine, hummus rolls. Miss Penny was busy as a bumble bee in a flyswatter factory handing out slices of burnt bread for a very reasonable 50 cents a crack (butter 10 cents extra, butter and jelly 15 cents extra).
     Miss Kitty wanted the bar's ceiling cleaned but nobody could find a ladder. So Mr. Kent volunteered for the job and was busy walking on the ceiling, mop in hand, doing his bit to make the new Halfmast look its best. Down at the other end of the room, West Sandusky Fred was busy cleaning and polishing the pool table. All of the old cigar butts had been chipped away and Fred even went to the trouble of replacing the felt on the table top. Actually, he couldn't get hold of any new felt so he used terry-cloth beach towels instead. Nobody had the heart to tell him it wouldn't work, but then we knew it also meant there would be fewer billiard balls flying around the room.
     Mac Murphy was at the other end of the bar hanging up the Confederate Flag. It was quite a generous gesture on Mac's part. He was the owner of the world's largest Confederate flag and he was letting us hang it in the bar.
     "That's mah baby there. Y'all better be respekfull of her," he said with a smile as he finished installing the electric eye sensor and the steel cage hanging from the ceiling.
     Mervin Q. Ferderber, crack Public Relations man for the GBICWWMM,L was sitting in his special little cubbyhole under the bar next to the beer steins, busily writing up flyers for the Halfmast's grand re-opening. Ferderber is the only PR man in the world that suffers from both agoraphobia and an inferiority complex. But he does do great work as long as he doesn't have to go anywhere or talk to anybody.
     "Red" Ruffinsor, the singing cowboy and provost of the Grumpy University was setting up the sound system at the back of the room.We all stopped what we were doing to watch him. Most of us had encouraged "Red" to make the set up part of his act. We all thought it was great fun watching him plug the wrong cords into the right sockets (or was it the right cords into the wrong sockets?). This must be how break dancing was invented. Anyway, to get back on track, "Red" finished setting up the sound equipment and proceded to test it by singing a few bars of his latest song, "You are My Little Cactus 'Cause You Prick Me Where It Hurts." We all agreed that it sounded better than feed-back.
     Miss Kitty, Dacey May and Lois Playne were over by the bar tending the hummus fermenter. It took all three of them because fermenting hummus is a difficult task. If done wrong it can ruin the taste.
     Cujo Mike was down at the dark end of the bar, his usual spot, handing out pre-lit cigars. This was a compromise on our part. I was sitting close to him with a bucket of water handy. Soon we were all done with the preparations and gathered at the center of the bar. We all raised our glasses in a toast.

NEXT WEEK: What Cujo Mike did while we were giving the toast, OR Making plans to build a new indoor stadium; The Grumpy Bowl, on the burned out ruins of the Halfmast Tavern.

George Breithaupt is a photographer, copy editor and columnist for the Mount Vernon News. We know that you know this but we want to make sure HE remembers it.