Captain Pike's Ship Log II

After college, I worked for a company whose major customer was IBM. Lots of times, it would be my job to travel to a big IBM facility to work on a piece of equipment or debug some software there. I can remember we usually stayed at the Holiday Inn. It was right off the highway, sort of on the edge of town. When you were a guest at the Holiday Inn they would give you a free drink coupon that you could use in the bar. Naturally, I would begin drinking there. Holiday Inn bars are like malls in that, in the right frame of mind, you could be anywhere, you could be home. Sometimes, when traveling away for work, wondering idly through the local mall would ease my homesickness. I could imagine that I were in the mall near my home.

I always hated having dinner by myself in the hotel restaurant. They always put you at a table suited for two people. Sitting there, by myself, through the whole meal, it is as though I've been stood up: my date never showed so I just decided to eat my problems away. So, after work I would get back to the hotel room and maybe change into something a little more casual. If I found myself in the Holiday Inn restaurant, I would generally sit at the bar for supper. Other people at the bar generally fell into two categories: salesman on the road, away from home and local people having stopped off for a couple on the way home or out for the night. I'd usually be pretty bored though, trying to act interested in the muted SportsChannel while listening to the taped bar music. They want to keep your senses busy so you won't realize how stupid it is to hang out in their bar. It's a pretty safe environment though, and nothing much is going to happen there.

So as I sit there trying not to seem bored, I remember seeing this little shanty on the other side of the Highway from where I exited to go to the hotel. It was a low, long place with a lot of older pickup trucks and some Harleys parked out front. After stopping in the bathroom, I decided to try to make my way over the highway on foot to check out this little shanty. It took some doing -- they don't really want people walking around the off ramps and medians of a divided highway and have fences and barriers. People look at you strangely as they whiz by at highway speeds when you're standing in the median strip looking for the right time to dodge across. I kind of skip-tumbled down the grassy "angle of repose" from the built-up highway into the corner of the parking lot of "Moogs Ranch". Crossing their lot, I noticed the Holiday Inn bourbon warming my face. Hearing the country music interspersed with some loud arguing somehow gave me the sense that I was overdressed.

In this area of upper State New York, the rolling hills make it look almost as though slumbering giants, having laid down to rest, were covered over quickly by a thin layer of forest. Remember, we're right in the heart of rip Van Winkle's stomping grounds. That evening, the sun was setting pink and orange over the sleepy hips and shoulders of the Adirondacks. The walls of the bar were busy with license plates, automobile parts and various signs of antiquity proclaiming unbelievably low prices. Whistle, Crush and Ask Dad, He Knows, even in their still-lifeness, were infinitely more interesting than moving, muted sports heroes. Just like the crickets will resume their trilling after a short while, most of the heads that turned to see this odd stranger entering their environment, quickly resumed their previous activities. One pool playing fellow with a thick black goatee seemed to keep a suspicious eye trained on me as I selected a vacant stool at the bar. This was my kind of place, I ordered a draft. The bartender had that kind of heaviness that suited him: no hanging gut or sloppy triceps, this guy was solid but by no means all muscle.