Once I’d actually gotten to know the brothers Harold and Kenny Schneider, who at the time owned the K & H Café in Lanesville, Indiana, elements of my wayward past life began nagging at me. Early on, I resolved never to tell them my secret. The embarrassment would be too great, because they’d become more than ordinary bartenders. They were friends and mentors.
Harold, whom everyone knew as Strawberry (or Straw), died in June of 2013 at the age of 78, prompting memories and reflection. Is it too late now to confess? I don’t think so. It’s never too late to start all over again, and to put this trauma behind me forever by confiding aloud to his brother, other surviving family members and the planet as a whole: Yes, it’s all true. When first patronizing the K & H Café and partaking of its short list of adjunct beers, kept highly chilled therein, I wasn’t yet 21 years of age.
In fact, I was barely 19. There: I’ve said it.
What more can I say?
—
Kenny and Straw owned the K & H for 35 years, from 1960 (the year I was born) through 1995, when quite a few of the regulars from various eras gathered together to say goodbye and to wish them a happy retirement. A deeper consideration of this chronology reveals Straw to have been 25 when the “K” first opened, and 60 when the new owners took over.
(Immediately, I don the dainty shoes of Miss Trixie, elderly and iconic secretary inhabiting the pages of America’s funniest novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, to plaintively ask: “Am I retired yet?” Is there a slim possibility of my own escape from small business ownership servitude in only seven short years? Alas, it’s highly unlikely. I started later than Straw, at the advanced age of 32, and three and a half decades for me projects to a conceivable departure at 67. Ah, but a boy can dream)
Of course, mere words never will suffice to summarize a long and well-lived life. Some probably look down on the occupation of small town tavern keeper, but Straw raised kids and sent them through college (as did his brother), went to church, and was an active community pillar by any local standard. Displaying a bushy red raised eyebrow, he was understated to the point of a sage’s gentle sandbagging, invariably providing the barflies with wise, thoughtful counsel.
My chronological transgressions as patron were artfully obscured when Straw and Kenny hired me as an occasional bartender in 1983; there was no job application, and an ID wasn’t necessary considering I already possessed the requisite state servers permit from my other job at the package store. It was my first glimpse of the view from the other side of the bar.
The routine was simple. The two owners alternated weekly, working days or nights. An ancient lady who’d been there form the start cooked burgers and tenderloins at lunch, then prepped the evening’s food for greater efficiency, because on slower weeknights, the sole bartender both served and manned the griddle. On weekends, there’d be some kitchen help and an extra bartender to accommodate larger crowds.
Budweiser and Miller Lite were on tap, served in chilled Mason jars. Cocktails mostly resembled various combinations of whiskey, vodka, coke and orange juice. There might have been tomato juice, and tequila shots were not unknown. Pabst, Old Milwaukee and a handful of other mass market brands were available in cans, and a couple weekly cases of Stroh’s were on hand for Doc, a colorful Lanesville resident who duly pillaged them each weekend.
The wood-paneled bar room was divided from the all-ages area by a wall, later removed during renovations near the end of the brothers’ long run. Carry-out beer was kept in a cylindrical metal refrigerator — literally, a discarded blood bank. Upstairs was a dusty, unused former apartment filled with supplies, point-of-sale detritus and a quarter-century of lost-and-found.
I desperately wanted to live up there.
The fat screen above the bar showed college sports, selected network dramas and (for a while) the Dukes of Hazard. The electronic darts game in back provided a useful distraction for idle hands, when visible; there was no discernible non-smoking area, and no obligation to provide one. Country music and classic rock played on a genuine vinyl-filled juke box, and to this very day, certain Conway Twitty and Alabama songs compel my inner Pavlov’s dog to yelp at the mere suggestion of their chords. Quite early during my tenure, customers pitched in to help restore a vintage shuffleboard table. It was a retro showpiece.
Once, in a condition of sheer blotto, my visiting cousin noticed a wooden carving on the shelf behind the bar, and announced to all and sundry that Jesus now was on tap. Saviors aside, no imports were stocked, and craft beer as such didn’t yet exist during the Reagan years, although the brothers tolerated a short period when Larry and I got uppity and insisted on bringing bottles of Guinness Export Stout inside the K & H for mixing into half-and-halves, in Mason jars, using … yes, using Budweiser in place of pale ale.
Once the novelty wore off, I accepted my station in regional life and meekly went back to drinking Doc’s leftover Stroh’s.
—
It wasn’t until I moved to Floyds Knobs from Georgetown and began hanging out at a pizza place in New Albany called Sportstime did my Lanesville ties begin to fade. An evolution was underway, or a revolution, or maybe (finally, and regrettably) I was growing up. But times changed quickly, and it wasn’t long before decades had passed and a rose-hued glow began shining in the rear-view mirror. I’ve learned to respect it – and keep driving.
When I think back, not once during my period of work and patronage at the K & H did the prospect of small business ownership cross my mind. Yet here I am, immersed.
Perhaps inadvertently, I learned far more about running a business than was evident to me at the time. Straw in particular offered numerous and memorable life lessons about patience and a good attitude when dealing with the unpredictability of the consuming public. I may not have always practiced these examples, but they haven’t been forgotten.
Most importantly, the K & H was all about community, and Straw welcomed me as part of the Lanesville family, as well as his own. It’s the biggest insight of all, and one that never goes out of fashion. Rest in peace, kind sir. Your work lives on … even the Mason jars, which I’m told are back in fashion.
