There are places I remember All my life, though some have changed (“In My Life,” Rubber Soul 1965)—Foley’s Tavern…
If you uphold the notion you can tell a lot about a place by what it does with its eggs, follow me to Foley’s Tavern–not the Foley’s of today, but the one of yesteryear– that special place where most of our nostalgic memories reside. This dive on Manville Hill Road in Cumberland , Rhode Island became Friday’s after school stomping ground for a group of teachers. No doubt about it, the “counter culture” inside Foley’s inspired me to conjure Torch’s, the seedy bar in my novel, Underlying Notes.
Foley’s Tavern was distinguished by its lopsided green canopy over the entry way leading to a small basement hideaway. Proprietors Doris and Bill Foley extended their hospitality as did Shane, the Irish Setter, making his rounds by the tables for back rubs or settling at your feet. Cigarette haze and the odor of smoke not only assailed you, but infiltrated your hair and permeated your clothes permanently. At the time, most of the locals who frequented the bar and sat on its stools were of French-Canadian descent with an accent thick as bacon. Our crew had the habit of commandeering the tables where we’d congregate for the rest of the night by pushing them together along the wall whose window overlooked a meandering tributary of the Blackstone.
As with most social gatherings, thoughts turn to food other than goldfish lining the bowls scattered throughout the bar. Inside Foley’s Tavern, food choices trickled down to goldfish or pickled eggs. Crammed alongside the bottles of hard stuff on shelves behind the bar stood a couple of mammoth jars filled with green embryos one might find in a little shop of horrors. The first time I bit into one of those rubbery hard-boileds my eyes watered, my lips puckered, and the inside of my mouth felt sucked dry from the aftertaste of vinegar. This interlude proved a false lull of disgust as I soon acquired a taste for pickled fermented Faberges and bought them regularly at the supermarket.
Not only did we monopolize the tables at Foley’s, but regularly sent out for wieners or pizza to eat on the premises. To further pass the time a bunch of us divided ourselves into two teams to play “Name that Song Artist.” Someone from either team fired out a song title from the fifties or sixties, and the first to hazard the correct guess won a point for their team. Yours truly was not only one of the oldies champs, but could stump the best of them with the forgotten or obscure. Feeding the jukebox in the corner throughout the night kept the joint jumping. I never tired of selecting Wilbert Harrison’s ” Kansas City .”
On rare occasions Foley’s was a meeting place to finalize other evening plans we’d mustered. The logistics figured out, we’d pick ourselves off from the red vinyl chairs and tailgate to the next event or destination. More often than not, we idled away the time just fine inside the close quarters of that tavern.
Years later, to my lament, Foley’s Tavern came under new ownership. Out with the old, in with the new, the tavern has been reincarnated into a metrosexual establishment on the first floor of the building. No longer a hole-in-the-wall bar purveying liquor and pickled eggs, Foley’s Tavern offers finger food, sandwiches, and other fare. Just as there is loyalty among thieves, fondness and allegiance remain intact among members of a motley crew who joked, laughed, and commiserated in each other’s company. When the “founding father” of our social movement passed away, there was no better sendoff than a reception in his honor held inside Foley’s Tavern. All these places had their moments, With lovers and friends I still can recall, Some are dead and some are living, In my life I’ve loved them all…
Eva Pasco
Author, UNDERLYING NOTES
Free Excerpt (Chs 1-3) : http://www.booklocker.com/books/4431.html
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