B is for Beer on Tap: My Dad’s Bar Tending Gig. Second of 26 posts in the April 2024 Blogging From #AtoZChallenge. Theme: My Life: The Prequel (in Snapshots) adding my parents’ stories to the family history mix. Please join me on the journey.
My dad, Norm Charboneau, grew up in Otter Lake, Oneida Co., N.Y., where his parents — Wm. Ray and Mary (Owen) Charboneau — operated the Otter Lake Hotel during late 1920s-40s.
The hotel was a family business requiring all hands on deck during the summer months. So my dad and his four older brothers — Owen, Frannie, Hubert and Fred (who worked as a waiter) — all pitched in one way or another to help their parents run the place.
Memorable characters
In 1941, Dad turned 18 — which was then New York State’s legal drinking age — so that meant he could tend bar in the summer during high school and college breaks.
He clearly loved the job and the characters. Some of those he waited on were veterans of the Spanish-American War (in which the U.S. displaced Spain as the imperial power in Cuba and elsewhere).
My father was particularly amazed by one old veteran who arrived punctually each month, after cashing his pension check, and ordered two cold beers. Dad called him Ed in his novel Labor Day Mystery: A Red Flannel Yarn (quoted below) and Red is the bartender.
The two-beer veteran
“Red produced a cold, brown bottle of Fort Schulyer and placed it on the bar without a glass. Ed picked it up, tilted back his head, and the amber liquid poured down his throat with no indication of swallowing.
” ‘You are truly amazing, Ed. If anyone I know tried to drink like that, they would drown. Are you ready for number two?’ Red answered his own question by placing the second cold bottle on the bar….
” ‘Well, there were a few things we learned in the Army that didn’t come out of the manual,’ Ed explained. ‘The first is to lay the dust, the second to be savored with much more leisure.’ “
Ladies who lunch
Generally, though, the Otter Lake Hotel catered to vacationing families — as well as a significant number of school teachers fleeing the heat of the cities during their summer vacations.
So my dad’s bartender skills would also have encompassed cocktails to serve at card parties on the porch — like the one shown above — or the annual “Christmas in August” event my grandmother Mary organized for guests each summer, complete with a tree, gifts and a hired piano player.
Although bartender wasn’t my father’s ultimate career calling, he thoroughly enjoyed it as a summer job. In his later years, Dad had a stocked bar in the basement rec room — hearkening back to those youthful days behind the bar at the Otter Lake Hotel.
Up next: C is for Charboneau childhood: My dad’s early years. Please stop back! Meanwhile, please visit the other Happy Tuesday bloggers by clicking on the link below.
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© 2024 Molly Charboneau. All rights reserved.
wonderful post about your Dad and his summer job bartending which I am sure was an education of life ~ hugs,
Wishing you good health, laughter and love in your days,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
You’ve had/have a fabulous family. When I was in my 20s I tended bar for several years in a dinner house. One of the first female bartenders out there. Fun, but it didn’t take long to figure out it had no future in terms of retirement.
Thank you for joining the Happy Tuesday Blog Hop.
Have a fabulous Happy Tuesday. ♥
Just thinking of my late Uncle Lou, so gentle and loving to his family. But I found out that, in his youth, he was an amateur boxing and had the reputation of being a brawler. You just never know what those adults in your life did when they were younger.
So true. The adults in our lives have often mellowed by the time we get to know them. Had my dad not written about his bar tending, I might never have know about it.
I never know my grandfather to drink but when I found some of the letters his friends had written him when they were in their twenties, I found he and was known in his circle for his “punch”. And found him in a directory as a bar tender. Very surprised.
Family history research is always a revelation, as you found with your grandfather. We know many of our ancestors when they are older, which can sometimes disguise a more footloose youth 🙂
There’s a bar owner on my mom’s side of the family – back in the 1900’s.
You are sharing some good memories with us all.
Very cool. I have another distant ancestor who allegedly ran a bar, too — but still documenting that one.