The heart of the house. That, and the den, which was on the other side of the bar from the hallway.
It was designed to be just like a bar in a tavern in the Virginia of the 1700’s, complete with wooden bars to slide down and lock at night, and complete with the lock as well.
As a child, I measured my growth by how close the top of my head came to the bar’s counter top, sidling under where the counter projected out, and stretching my head up as high as I could. Later I measured myself by how close I was to being able to peer over the top of the counter, without standing on my toes. Then, being able to rest my chin on its top.
My father presided there every afternoon when he came home from work. Waiting for him, every afternoon, was a bottle of his favorite bourbon, a full bucket of ice, and a lemon, sitting on the cutting board.
His toddy recipe: a jigger (or two) of bourbon over ice, a spoon-tip’s worth of sugar, water, and a twist of lemon peel to finalize the thing.
He made Mom one as well, though for a while when I was in high school, she took to drinking white wine instead, figuring she wouldn’t get as drunk. She didn’t use that word, though, but spent a lot of time on the phone with her friends saying how much healthier she felt now that she wasn’t drinking. Eventually, she went back to bourbon.
Dad said that he had to teach her to drink, back when they were dating. “I didn’t drink anything back then,” she said. “I was a cheap date,” she said, and laughed.
“Your father told me he couldn’t be with someone who didn’t drink.”
And so I grew up thinking that bourbon was a necessary adjunct to adulthood. I wondered if I would ever like it. I would have a Coke, in a tall glass, with ice.
white pebble 