Gene's Legendary Cruise, white Knuckle style to Baha!

LOL

Did I miss any??  I think that's all the names that covered the sign out front of the corner bar in town.

The two story white building on the north west corner of the main intersection in town has been there longer then most Westmoreland residents...or as long as I can remember at least. 

I never paid much attention to the Bar originally known as Gene's Bar and Grill.  In fact I could go as far as to say I only remember noticing it once in my youth.  In junior high we had a track meet canceled.  I think it was Jana, Bev and I...we walked right in, bellied up to the bar and ordered some food.  I say walked right in, but I was probably nervous and giddy, hiding behind them.  I know there were sandwhichs involved, because we brought them back to the school and ate in the cafeteria...I remember this, because that was the first time I had ever seen bologna walk down a wall.  We tossed them to up onto Snoopy that sat high above his giant hot dog and watched them creep down! 

I was in Legends just once.  My older friend convinced me that she could get me served and once again I guarantee I walked in shyly behind her.  I let he order.  I at the point was given my first OJ and Vodka (screwdriver) in a bar setting. 

The next time I would grace the threshold of the corner bar it would be known as Cruisers, and it would become, 'my bar.'  Still under aged it would become my favorite place to be...and where my husband and I would eventually meet up, fall madly in love...vomit a little and later purchase a house within walking distance (Brett's idea...not mine.) 

Brett was a cook.  Monday night football and weekends, he spent in the kitchen.  He did it for the free drinks I suspect.  I would get behind the bar on Friday nights with my girlfriend who was tending the bar and spend the evening making up my own concoctions no matter when the patron ordered.  Three things were known about Cruisers.  1.  Saturday was ladies night, and there would be no room to move...the word sardines comes to mind.  2.  The drinks would always get those ladies very drunk.  We made them all very strong, and why not?  Every one was having fun and it's not like Kevin, the owner, was ever counting anything!  and 3.  Never drink the water...enough said there.

Within the dirty sticky walls that made Cruisers the bar it was I saw and heard many things throughout the years.  I learned to play pool pretty well.  I watched grown man after grown man cut their hands on the Golden Tee.  I answered a lot of odd phone calls from inside the barrel. I saw three very vivid bar fights that I can remember very clearly.  I painted a grown man's face with makeup as he was passed out in a chair.  I discovered the Brett and Eric look remarkably a lot like Beavis and Butthead.  I learned how to play 'aces' with Dice (and win) I stole paraphernalia, watched a grown woman fit into a sink, and had a beer bottle actually fall out of the hole in the ceiling where it had been lodged and land on my forehead.

So many great stories...

I loved my bar.

Brett and I became close friends at Cruisers, mostly around the Jukebox or during bar athletics.  Our first date actually finished there on New Years Eve, and took a nasty turn as I found myself vomiting in the ladies room...he still kissed me at midnight however.  Sitting in the middle of that bar, on one of the old leather bar stools...on that first date, was the moment I knew that I was out with the man I was going to marry.  That's another story though.

When Cruisers finally went under and closed (because let's face it, a bunch of drunk 20 year olds were running it) we were all heart broken.  I took with me several things from the bar the night we closed it, the most odd being a light bulb.  (I had issues.)

It reopened as Knuckleheads and it just wasn't the same.  A new crowd moved in, but we still pushed our way through anyhow. 

They moved on as soon as their lease was up and Baha's Sports Bar moved in.  By this time, we had become an old married couple and frequented only so often.  I haven't been inside the walls of the bar on the corner in over a year, but I am still sad at what I see today.

Many times I have thought that we could have bought 'my bar' and called it Brett's Bar and Grill.  He could delight everyone in the county with his cooking, and I could sit at the end of the bar with a laptop and write great stories about the many people that graced the black topped bar.  The young new drunks, the old veterans, the farmer, the wanna be cowboy, the hunters, the white trash, the sluts, the poker run snowmobilers, the trashy trying desperately to be classy, the college kids, the sports fans, and lets not forget the guy, who comes in for a night out with his glammed out blast from the past eighties wife and he in his sweat pants!  All of those wonderfully mellow people that 'lost their wallets' in the parking lot time after time and went out in droves to look for it!  Oh the stories I could tell...  The Gills and Bradys that generations of young drinkers have tortured...Gill's hat!  (OMG) 

The bar sits where she has for decades and today she is roped off and the demo equipment fills the small parking area where we used to double park behind the cars of friends we knew.  I read once that the land on the corner once had one George Washington's name on the deed. during early settlements  (I wonder if Gene was there even then?)  I don't know for certain that she will be torn down, but that's the way it appears this evening.  It's very sad and I shutter at the idea of driving past and finding the vacant lot.

So many stories...so many very good times...


I love this bar
It's my kind of place
Just trollin' around the dance floor
Puts a big smile on my face
No cover charge, come as you are
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar
Hmm, hmm, hmm I love this bar

        - Toby Keith