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.
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