Poker, Pulltabs, and a Bartender named Rob

I like to play poker. I play whenever I get the chance to. Since the birth of my two kids, however, I rarely get the chance to play anymore. So when my dad asked if I wanted to go to the local VFW to play Texas Hold’Em I jumped at the chance. I figured I can play some cards, and do some research for this assignment. It’s a win, win situation right? I cleared it with the boss (my wife), and off to play cards, ummm, I mean do research I went.

The game started at 7 so I told my dad to meet me there at 6:30. I went a tad earlier just to hang out, observe and see just what the folks at a VFW sit and chat about. When I walked in the first thing I noticed is how dark it was in there. I would come to find the lighting matched the over all feel of the room. The bar area was large with a room full of tables, a pull-tab desk off to the right of the front door, and hundreds of military photos and memorabilia hanging on the wall. The walls were finished in cheap, dark wood paneling and it smelled of years of cigarette smoke that used to fill that place before the ban took effect. Despite the room of open tables the 25-30 folks that occupied the place all were saddled up at the bar, drink in hand and a stack of ones ready to pay for the next round. Most of the folks there were men, older in age, looking like they have done two life-times of hard labor and were gearing up for another life-time of even harder work. Some sat alone staring at one of the two flat-screen TVs tuned to Sports Center, and others sat in a row of two to four chatting about various different topics. So under my breathe I say, “When in Rome”, found a place at the bar, ordered a drink, and sat and waited for my dad to arrive.

Across the bar from me was a group of four guys. They had matching hats on from some local electrical company so I figured this is where they go from time to time after work to unwind and get some things off of their chest. The topic of conversation was Obama. The guy that dominated the conversation was probably in his sixties, had weathered hands and a haggard face that only years of work in a Minnesota winter will give you.
He was quite adamant that Obama was turning our nation into a socialist society. He was opposed to a government run health care system; thought Obama spent too much time on The Jay Leno Show, and thought the economy was too slow in turning around. I disagreed with just about everything he said but I was not here for a political debate. The rest of the guys in the group mostly nodded to the things he said except for one of the younger guys who mostly just said things like, “we’ll see” and “hopefully things will turn around because it really can’t get much worse than the previous eight years.” That, I agreed with.

From there I turned my attention to two guys sitting right next to me. They were in their forties and each had some sort of Viking gear on. I think one guy actually had a pair of Zubaz on as well. They had their eyes glued to the TVs and were discussing who they were going to start on their fantasy football team this week. I love football but I don’t get involved in fantasy football. It seems like “Dungeons and Dragons” for the sports geek. Anyway, they went back and forth about whom to start at wide receiver and running back and took turns buying rounds of the cheap beer for each other. Occasionally the talk would turn to work and how things were. There were never really any details, just comments like, “I’m just lucky to have a job right now.” and “OSHA was in the other day.” It was at this time when my dad walked in and took a seat next to me at the bar.

The first thing my dad says is, “Can I buy you a drink?” The answer of course was, “yes”. So he hails the bartender who makes his way over and says, “Hey Butch (my dad’s name), what can I get you, Coors?” To that my dad replies, “How you doing Rob? Yeah, give me a Coors Light and a Windsor/Coke for my son here.” That was a very telling sign of how things were here. Everyone was a regular and knew the bartender’s name and the bartender in turn knew them and pretty much what they drank. I had a few rounds with my dad, talked about family stuff, and waited to sign up for the poker tournament.

Through out the night, in-between poker hands I kept watching the cliental and it seemed like they all knew each other. Topics ranged from their kids and what sports they were playing to winterizing the cabin to how it felt to have Brett Favre as a Minnesota Viking. The topics were very surface and other than the Obama discussion, didn’t go very deep. Kind of like a “don’t disturb the herd” mentality. It was an unspoken rule here that any topic that had a chance of causing friction was off limits and even though the folks were there to have fun the atmosphere seemed pretty dim and hopeless. There weren’t a lot of genuine laughs, just insincere chuckles and forced smiles. It almost seemed like they knew that this night was fleeting and tomorrow they would be back at jobs they hated, doing hard work for less than ideal wages, and waiting for next Thursday where they will all meet here again for drinks and free poker. It’s a revolving scenario that’s been going on for quite some time.

I'd like to think that the VFW is not an accurate cross section of my community. At least I hope it’s not. I think that it’s just a slice of a smaller group of people that have worked extremely hard their whole lives and have seen a lot of dreams go unfulfilled. They feel betrayed by their government, they work hard, take that one week vacation every year, watch the local sports teams, do their best to make ends meet, and come here every Thursday for just a little time away from it all. Maybe that’s why the talk doesn’t touch on very heavy topics most of the time. They get enough of it in their everyday lives. In my opinion the VFW is like comfort food to them and in the words of a famous theme song, “sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name.”