March, 1993. The weekend after St. Patrick's Day – must have been the 19th or 20th. I am sitting in the Dubliner. The Dubliner is a pub in Washington DC, just off of Capitol Hill. As you might imagine, it's an Irish Pub. I had been going there for several years, ever since my girlfriend Ellen (no, the other one) had introduced me to its charms. We would go there fairly often, and just about every night when John McGrath was performing. John would come over once or twice a year, and perform at the Dubliner for about three weeks. Accompanying himself on the guitar or the bodhran (purportedly made from the skin of an Englishman), he would sing traditional Irish tunes, Irish rebel songs, and traditional/modern folk songs . The stage was in the bar area, which wasn't very large to begin with, so you had to get there early to get a seat. John was great, he would take requests, and seemed to know just about everyone in the crowd. (He probably did, because I would see people there I never saw any other time of year.) I would always request the Leonard Cohen song “So Long, Marianne”.
The Dubliner is where I first learned to drink Guinness. I would watch the bartender slow-pour this black liquid into a pint glass, then wait while it sat and “fell out”. Only then was it ready for the trip to my table. I was impressed with the solid dark bottom, and the foamy head that presented itself unlike any beer I had ever had. I probably blanched and shuddered at my first ever sip, but pretty soon I came to crave its charms as if it were mother's milk. It is still my beer of choice.
After Ellen and I broke up, I continued to visit the Dubliner. I would meet Pete, from work, his girlfriend Lisa and her friend Alisa, and we would have a great time. The four of us closed the bar on more than one occasion. These nights would often end with us down in the monumental core, visiting the sites. At 2 in the morning. With at least two of us drunk. Yeah, we got kicked out of the Lincoln Memorial.
The funny thing about Irish Pubs is that they are NOT where you want to be on St. Patrick's Day. People come out of the woodwork who would otherwise not set foot in the Dubliner any other day of the year. The Dubliner would clear out all the tables to make room for the influx of people who just wanted to drink, get drunk, and get boisterous. And then spill their beer on me. Let's just say that it is not the sort of place I want to be on St. Patrick's Day. I miss the ambiance.
The weekend after St. Patrick's Day is another story. All the regulars are back, the atmosphere has returned to normal. The wait staff is a little shell-shocked, but that just means that they are in a pretty relaxed mood. Kind of like when a batter swings two bats in the on-deck circle. When he steps up to the plate, the one bat feels even lighter, and easier to swing. It's like that.
Pete and I were sitting in the restaurant portion of the pub on the weekend after St. Patrick's Day, 1993. If you enter the main entrance (on F Street), you go directly into the bar/stage area. Take a left, pass the bar, and step up into the main dining room. We were sitting at a table against the wall on your left. We had a delicious (as always) meal, and our beers were served in special pint glasses. There was a picture of a guy drinking beer from a keg, surrounded by large casks, and around the picture it said “The Dubliner – St. Patrick's Day 1993”. As I had lots of great memories of my times at the Dubliner, I thought it would be cool if I could keep the glass. We waited for the waitress to come back so I could ask her, but I had to use the men's room. When I was “otherwise occupied”, she came and cleared the table and by the time I got back the glass was gone. Pete told me that she had just taken everything away, and he didn't have a chance to ask her about the glass. Of course, he said it with a twinkle in his eye, so I should have suspected something. (Except that Pete said everything with a twinkle in his eye!) A couple minutes later, the waitress showed up with my glass in a brown paper bag, and told me that she had just taken it to be washed before I took it home.
That glass went back to my apartment in Arlington, and survived three moves. I still used it as my primary pint glass, and it has seen it's share of beverages, but there was nothing like drinking a Guinness out of this glass that never failed to spark my memory of good times almost 16 years ago. In fact, just last night that glass faithfully served me a pint of Leinenkugel's Fireside Nut Brown, to end my day. And, in a odd coincidence, I just reconnected yesterday with Pete (via Facebook), after losing touch with him for the last 13 years!
This morning, I am eating breakfast when I hear a “CRASH”. Beenie high-tails it past me through the dining room and I go to the kitchen to investigate. There, in pieces, on the floor, is my Dubliner pint glass.
This is something that I have often thought about. I've considered the fact that the glass will break at some point in my life. I've reached back into the Buddhist in me to remember the philosophy of impermanence. It was actually because of that that I continued to use the glass. I've dropped it in the sink, I've crashed it into other glasses, but nothing seemed to damage it. I suppose that if it could survive in a bar, it could survive in my house. I've got countless other pint glasses that we have collected over the years to choose from. And yet, I feel sad that the glass is gone. It symbolized to me a connection to that particular time in my life. A connection to the memory of friends from long ago, in a city where I spent some significant, formative years.
I'll get over the loss of the glass. I'll keep my perspective on what's important in life. There will be other glassware. It's time to move on.
