A local in the Ten-Year pit turned to me and said a buddy of his was opening a new bar and restaurant in the neighborhood.
“Go over and ask for a job, I’ll put in a good word for you.”
I was an arb clerk on the trading floor, renting my first apartment in Oak Park, and a little extra money could help. The rest is history. The year was 1991.
It was the beginning of a love affair with what would become my happy place in the world, but still close to home.
I worked there for a while but felt more comfortable in front than behind the bar. In those early days, when youth still filled my heart, I would jump up on the bar and dance...
...and when the song ended, I would jump back down.
My ankles, knees, and hips cringe at the memory.
I threw legendary Christmas parties, epic Mardi Gras parties, and even had my dress rehearsal dinner at 7353 West Madison.
I met dear friends that I still have today. Friends I only knew for one night and characters who came and went with the last call.
There was a sad lady who reminded us of Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire. She drank a cocktail called a Salty Dog. So she became the Salty Dog at the end of the bar.
There was the Bank Dick. A neighborhood kid who had suffered a brain injury as a child. He was outgoing, always ready with a riddle or a limerick for anyone who would listen. A short guy with dark glasses, dark curly hair... looked a little like Woody Allen.
We called him the Bank Dick because he would finish a conversation, walk to the back corner, and jot notes into a small notebook he pulled from his jacket pocket.
Years later, we found out he was writing things down so he wouldn’t forget who he met, where he was and what happened. The injury affected his memory, but you would never know it. He was always sharp as a tack and sober as a judge.
There was Mike, part owner, part bartender, part cook and full-time customer. Tall, lanky, a swimmer at the local Catholic high school and a Big Ten college. He had a thick walrus mustache that covered his mouth and held the foam from his beer.
One night he took a bet that he could drink a shot from the spillage in the muck bucket under the bar sink. The one where all the used glassware was dumped before being washed.
Melted ice, backwash, bruised fruit, drink stirrers, the last sips of everything, muddled together in a five-gallon bucket.
Mike slammed it.
That was the last time we saw Mike for several months.
He got sick, real sick. It became a bit of a legend that the bucket muck did him in.
The regulars became friends. Sometimes they became family. They had baptism showers, wedding showers and many fiftieth birthday parties.
The food had a Cajun-Creole flavor... famous for jambalaya, gumbo, and especially the voodoo pork chops. And they made a Hurricane just like Pat O’Brien’s down in the French Quarter.
Whenever I was sad, I went to the bar.
Whenever I was happy, I went to the bar.
It is the only place where my father, my mother, my closest friends, my first love, my cousins, my in-laws, their daughter and the children we made all broke bread with me.
It is the common thread of where I gathered all the people who thought I was special.
There had been rumors for years that the owner, now in his seventies, wanted to sell.
He sold it last month.
And this weekend will be the last time the Cajun and Creole neon lights shine on the facade at Shanahans.
I went from my mid-twenties… to dating… to celebrating milestones… to marriage… to fatherhood… through divorce… and into my late fifties knowing that if I needed a memory-induced boost, I could drive to the Cajun/Creole Irish Pub on Madison Street in Forest Park.
I always thought people would gather at Shanahans after my wake and funeral. That the people who made me happy would meet in my one happy place.
Instead, I will be there Friday night, celebrating my last supper at Shanahans.
A couple more hours.
One last bowl of gumbo.
One last plate of jambalaya.
One last pork chop smothered in Tim Shanahan’s voodoo hollandaise.
And a couple, two, tree Hurricanes to wash it down.
But I definitely won’t be dancing on the bar.
Farewell, old friend.
You were the one constant from the peak of my youth to the beginning of my senior years. Thank you for the shoulder to cry on. The palm to high-five in jubilation. The ear that listened to my triumphs and my tribulations and the place I could always call home.
The next time I go to Shanahans will be in heaven.
When we all gather again in Eternal Étouffée.....
