The Verdict -- Robert Gardner

When I was born, my mother was the Washington state president of the

Women’s Christian Temperance Union -- a group that worked mightily to

make the sale and consumption of alcohol illegal -- and she wore an

enamel badge commemorating that event until the day of her death. Just

why she was so against liquor I have never known. My father was no

boozer. Still, if he wanted a drink, he had to slink into some bar to get

it, only after looking carefully up and down the street to ascertain

whether my mother or one of her spies was lurking around. Then, in the

bar, he used the pseudonym of Rosencrantz. Why that name I never knew

either.

And so, theoretically, because I worshiped my mother, I grew up to be

a total abstainer. No way. It must be something about the allure of the

forbidden. As I grew up during the Prohibition era, I think I probably

took up drinking because it was against the law. I certainly didn’t take

it up because of the taste of the stuff.

In those days, the established drink was straight alcohol mixed with

grapefruit juice. It was a pretty awful combination, but it helped pay my

way through college.

I worked at the Green Dragon Cafe on Main Street on the Balboa

Peninsula. While the Green Dragon was never a speak-easy, it was a

popular drinking place. We had booths where the drinkers could mix their

straight alcohol with the usual grapefruit juice. There were no

tablecloths on the tables for reasons that will shortly become apparent.

Straight alcohol and grapefruit juice was hard to get down and harder

to keep down, and that’s where I made my extra money. In every group that

came in, at some point in the evening, someone barfed, usually a woman,

although just why the sexual distinction I have never known. Anyway, once

that happened, I came into the act.

As soon as a customer barfed, I rushed over with my tools -- a long,

straightedge knife, a platter, a towel and a bottle of ammonia. After all

the customers, including the barfer, had slid out of the booth, I went to

work.

With the straight edge of the knife, I slid all the solid stuff off

the table and onto the platter, then I soaked the towel in ammonia and

wiped the table off. Once everything was clean, the drinkers slid back in

to start the process all over, and I received my usual tip -- 50 cents.

Romantic it wasn’t, but that’s how I paid my way through college.

Just how I got the job I don’t really remember. Since another job

consisted of monitoring a sewage outfall, maybe I just had a strong

stomach.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.