You can take the boy out of the wood paneled, poorly lit bar, but you can't take it out of the boy. Those exposed to Moose Lodges as children, at very early ages I might add, can never shake it. I remember practically growing up, in every way, in the Moose Lodge right off State Street in Santa Barbara. My grandmother would take me every day after two or so for happy hour, which at a Moose Lodge begins when the sun comes up and ends when the sun comes up. I would sit, stare at the wood paneling, drink my Roy Rogers ("Shirley Temples are for the bitches" I would say to my seven year old self) and play some sort of gambling game that predated modern scratchers. My grandmother would sit with three or four other retired, but still alive, friends and drink the afternoon away. If my brother was there, we would play in the parking lot, or slide on the dance floor. People still danced then, by which I mean all people, some well, some less so, but all people. On Friday nights, Marge would take me to the fish-fry at the Moose, which always meant fresh Red Snapper caught by her boyfriend, Lauren, who we all called speedy because he drove slower than a tax refund. Speedy's van was an old Dodge conversion, carpeted from floor to ceiling in a Tijuana body shop--shag carpet as far as the 10 year old eye could see, heaven. I didn't mind riding with Speedy and Marge because the inside of that van was like an afghan blanket, which is something you want in a town that never gets hot. So, Speedy caught the fish, fried it up every Friday night and we all went to the Moose Lodge for dinner and dancing. I had to dance with my grandmother, mother, aunts and any other old lady who thought I was cute, and I had all the cougars wanting a turn.
It makes sense then that my mom, who is now as old as my grandmother was then, who has recently gone through a year without a job, who is her mother's daughter, would join the El Segundo chapter of the Moose. It makes equal sense that she would volunteer to host the dinner for the month right out of the gate. Naturally, she asked my wife and me to help. In turn, we recruited a couple we know to come with and it was a party. I said to the husband of the couple who came with us that they are the only people I know who would say yes to making and serving dinner at a Moose Lodge to 75 retired Chevron and Hughes workers for no pay, unless you count the two free drinks from the bar and a free steak dinner. I have many friends, but J and A are special, the kind of people you want to be around, the kind you want to be like. So, with the wife and J and A, we made, served, remade and re-served 75 dinners for the octogenarian, blue-hairs who literally ate it up. I was on steak duty and only had to redo four. One sweet retiree asked my wife if she could meet me to tell me how much she liked the dinner. Now my wife is a believing soul and she let the lady in, prompting a fifteen minute lecture on how to cook a steak from a woman who was clearly wearing no bra, probably because they can't make them that big. Other than that, and one dirty old man hitting on my wife (do I have to kick an octogenarian's ass?), it was a good night. Sometime during the evening, my mother, whether it was the stress of a bad year, the tough time she's had with my sister, the nostalgia of the evening, crawled into a large bottle of questionable quality white wine and got blotto. For me, I was ten again, taking care of a drunk parent and not really feeling to bad about it. The wife and I hung around for an hour after dinner, drinking cheap liquor and trying to keep my mom in her chair. Then we piled her into the man van and unceremoniously dumped her off at her house. It was a fun night, a sketchy night, a night at the Moose.
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