The campus had changed very much physically and psychologically. In my
early years at Duke a beer keg was available friday afternoons at the
engineering building for faculty, grad and undergrad students to help
them mingle. That would be impossible to even imagine today.

In Texas I was the loser in a tenure battle that was more ridiculous
than dramatic. This failure was largely due to my refusal to play the
game, in part the manipulation of students.

Yes, this is all nostalgia, how much dark reality have I omitted? But nothing can be more real than the happiness these people and places have given me then and even now as I contemplate the darkness that is rising.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/ira-katz/nostalgia/

By Ira Katz

I must admit that the mounting number of ominous events have given me a sense of dread for the future. But recently I had a pleasant moment when I drank a biere blanche at a cafe for the first time in several months.  G. K. Chesterton remarked in his comments about his trip to America that “there are people whom I met for a few hours or a few moments, whom I none the less sincerely admire and honour because I cannot but smile as I think of them.”   In these terrible times I thought of the many bars and pubs where I spent so much of my life and enjoyed being with so many different kinds of people; it makes me smile.  One of the most memorable (pun intended) passages in all of literature is the moment in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu when Marcel tastes the tea and crumbs of his madeleine cake that sparks a shudder of pleasure throughout his body and memories of his past life. One tool to combat my dread is nostalgia. I realize modern progressive types (e.g., Pinker) always pooh pooh nostalgia. But of course they are wrong about most things. As I grow older I certainly think many things were better before and are getting worse now. What sane person would contradict that sentiment today? In the spirit nostalgia and Proust I recount below highlights from my pub life.

Park Place, Knoxville, TN

Just after graduating from the University of Florida engineering school I found a job at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, TN. This is a very interesting site with a special history beginning with the Manhattan Project.. I must say that I had 5 job offers, but took this one, the lowest in salary because of some intuition that I cannot explain. I rented an apartment in a complex in West Knoxville near the Pellissippi Parkway that is the direct route to Oak Ridge. I knew nothing about Knoxville or East Tennessee, I knew nobody. Yet, within a few months time I learned the locations of backroom gambling joints (though I never went to the back rooms themselves). This happened because East Tennessee is a special place, but even more it is because there was a clubhouse bar in the Brendon Park Apartment called Park Place. It was a simple bar with about 5 stools and canned beer owned by a couple of the residents. I recall a typical moment sitting at the bar between a Jewish physicist who did his PhD at Cornell and an unemployed hillbilly from West Virginia who’s prized possession was a magnum pistol that he often carried with him. “What shall we do tonight guys?” … miniature golf! I learned so much about life, especially about generosity, friendship, and how to enjoy life. Park Place was the wellspring of so much fun: group meals, all night poker games, road trips, fishing trips, and on and on. My friends were from Waterbury, CT; Buffalo, NY, Redondo Beach, CA, Atlantic City, NJ, etc., and of course from East Tennessee. Park Place ceased to exist long ago. My friends moved away decades ago. And I can only remember a tiny fraction of the stories and experiences that so enriched my life with so many smiles.

The Hideaway Bar, Duke University, Durham, NC

After three fun and transformative years in Knoxville I realized that if I stayed at Y-12 I would be doing the same kind of projects for years with very little vacation. So I decided to go to graduate school at Duke University (another intuitive decision). I needed to work very hard to get back in the education groove so I did not find a replacement for Park Place for at least a couple of years. Eventually I found The Hideaway Bar. Tucked in the basement of administration buildings on Duke’s gothic West Campus, this simple beer bar was organized by a business school professor with a committee of graduate student co-owners.I was usually there just after my graduate student workday with other grad students and university staff. I became friends with the manager of the computer store, the head of the bus service, and parking, and food service managers. Many were graduates of Duke, others were locals. We all loved sports, playing golf, tailgate parties and road trips. The bar sponsored a softball team (the special version called modified) that was the center of activity during the hot slow days of summer along with Durham Bulls minor league baseball. It was also the best place outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium to watch the basketball games as the crowd would also pass by before and after the game. At the end of my PhD my funding ran out so I worked there for a few months. The undergrads would show up after 10 as they finished studying. I strictly required at least a fake ID when I checked people at the door. But I was quick to note that I was not a bouncer. I would not think of “bouncing” anybody as half the bar was under age including the basketball stars. During the warm days near the end of the spring term we would sell every single beer we could store in the small bar. In particular I loved walking up from the engineering building as the weather was warming through the copse of trees (long gone) behind Duke Chapel with a quick stop to smell the breath of spring, (a fragrant bush like honeysuckle). The tiny green outside the bar had a picnic table where I would read in the sun just as the carillon of the chapel played at five o’clock. I even wrote a very bad sonnet about this experience,

A warm winters day at Duke I remember clear,
Not for the gardens, grounds or Gothic towers,
It is that something special in the air,
T’is when strolling past the Chapel’s flowers,
At four or five when I care not about a thing,
Just pausing for a moment’s thought,
On the beautiful fragrance of the breath of spring,
Yea I say, this can’t be bought,
Could I enjoy this sweet scented memory from now until eternity?
Employing this sonnet is my chosen course,
Hoping to recall the things I Love especially,
I complete this Devilish reminiscence with no remorse,
Leaving you now with one last thought to share
Life was sweeter still, continuing up to the Hideaway for an ice cold beer.

I forget much more than I list here about the old Hideaway. It closed in 2001 but it had lost its charm many years previously. The campus had changed very much physically and psychologically. In my early years at Duke a beer keg was available friday afternoons at the engineering building for faculty, grad and undergrad students to help them mingle. That would be impossible to even imagine today.

The Bombay Bicycle Club, San Antonio, TX

After some years as a postdoc I took a tenure track teaching position in San Antonio, TX. Same story, I knew nothing and nobody about San Antonio or Texas. Will Rogers once characterized San Antonio as one of the four unique cities in the United States.

In those days life in the city of San Antonio still was reflected in the mix of cultures that had enriched its history.  Life in the city was also enriched by the Bombay Bicycle Club.  Located in Brackenridge Park, just down the street from the zoo, the BBC reflected all that was good and unique about San Antonio and exhibited all the ingredients of a great saloon. In our modern, alienated society there are very few places where one can meet a stranger and strike up a conversation.  Even less where one can meet a stranger who will become a friend.  A great bar is one of those places and the BBC is a great bar.  In my day there a typical happy hour crowd included blue collar workers fresh from the delivery truck, white collar workers (many of them were lawyers), 09’ers (wealthy people who live within zip code 78209 which is made up of the fashionable enclaves of Olmos Park and Alamo Heights), a family of tourists who are visiting the park, and in August, members of the old Houston Oilers who trained at the nearby university.  The happy customers were Anglo, Hispanic, African-American, German, Croatian, . . .  You could meet a person from every race, religion, and ethnicity at Bombays.  One Sunday afternoon, in the almost empty bar, I watched a Celtics playoff game with the great Dave Cowens who was a coach for the Spurs. Not only was it possible to meet all of these people, but it was possible to get to know them, and to come to like them. A special place in my heart is for the Phone Man, who should be the character out of a novel he was so original and funny, the girls highschool basketball coach who was old and wise, the ex-CIA University of Chicago PhD who was too intelligent for his real estate business, but most of all for the owners. They were a true Texas couple (sadly apart now) with histories going back into the mists of Texas history. They were so generous and so much fun.  On my last visit to the BBC the owner handed me a reference letter  In part he wrote, “Ira is the absolute ideal customer.  He always shows up, speaks when spoken to, always pays, expects and asks for nothing for free and never causes fights.  Aside from being a fountain of information on an amazing number of topics, Ira appreciates the beauty of life, which includes having membership in a great local pub (I’d probably use the word joint)….  Please take care of my friend Dr. Katz, you’ll find him the most remarkable companion.” This letter is a prized possession that I had framed and put on the wall (my wife only allows me to decorate the toilet so it is there). I should say I never felt totally comfortable in Texas; that is, I never felt like a Texan. But I felt totally at home at the BBC. It still exists and it certainly must still be great as it is run by the same wonderful owner. To find a great bar, and to make it your bar, is one of the great pleasures in life.  One of the great pleasures I have had in life was finding the Bombay Bicycle Club.

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