Bob Thomas Writes

Are you from the South?

Once upon a time I actually left the South and went ‘up north’, as they say.

I was 21 years old and had been in the Air Force for about a year or so – I had just turned 21 and had my drinking license in my pocket.

Anyway, my trip up north – (by the way, I don’t capitalize ‘north’ because it’s a direction. I do capitalize “South” because it’s a place. You can point at it on a map. Try that with ‘north’! You can point any damn where and call it north!)

Anyway, the Air Force had sent me and a couple of buddies to Washington, DC for a little training on secret stuff – code machines and such –  and they gave us a night off and suggested we go visit our nation’s capital. They said we should look at the monuments and such. Maybe go see the President’s house, you know, tourist stuff.  

So we promptly took ourselves to a bar at 13^th andK Street that was reputed to have neckked dancing women . . . actually dancing on the bar we were told! Well, in all my life (this was 1964) I had never seen women dancing neckked on anything, much less a bar top!

The bar was named “The Circus Lounge” and it looked like something I ain’t never seen before – it was decorated up like a big ‘ol circus tent inside, and there was semi-neckked women swinging from trapezes on the ceiling, and if you got close to them they would run their fingers through your hair or grab your hat of something like that, and they would put the hat on their head and you had to beg like crazy to get it back!

Now, if you ain’t never stood underneath a neckked lady sitting on a trapeze swing, well it’s hard to explain, but it’s an awful distraction, and it’s hard to remember what you were begging for at the time! And honestly, it ain’t something you’d want to see twice, but at the time, it was something I hadn’t seen before in all my 21 years!

It took me about 30 minutes of begging, and five dollars, to get my hat back before I could get a seat at the bar. It was a big ‘ol round bar – like the center ring at the circus –  about 15 feet wide and in the center was the shelves for the bottles, so you couldn’t really see across to the other side. Our waitress asked us what we wanted to drink, so I said “a double shot or Four Roses with a water back”, just like I heard my Daddy say hundreds of times. Daddy always drank Four Roses with a big glass of water as a chaser.

The waitress got all big-eyed and said, “Are you from the South?” I said “Yes’em.” “YES’EM! Did you hear him? He said “YES’EM”, she screamed to everyone in ear shot. I apologized and said “Sorry, I meant Yes Ma’am”. YES MA’AM! Did you hear that?” By now I was getting a little bit perturbed about the whole thing and I said “Could I just have my drink?” 

She left and came back with two or three of the neckked dancing ladies. They all leaned close to me and said, “Say something else”. I said “Well, I don’t rightly know what to say to a neckked lady. Least not, something to say to a whole bunch of ‘em.” (That ain’t entirely true! I DO know what to say to a neckked lady, just not one as old as my Mama and wearing leather gloves to prevent rope burns!)

They all oooh’d and aaah’d over my Southern accent and demanded I say something else.

One of them said I sounded just like Andy Griffith from Mayberry. I explained that Andy didn’t really live in Mayberry, ’cause there ain’t no Mayberry, but he did sound like some folks I knew.

We talked back and forth for about an hour, and I had myself about five or nine double Four Roses. Somewhere in the back and forth talking they convinced me that swinging on the trapeze was great fun, and I should try it! However, since I was in uniform I told them it wouldn’t be right for me to disgrace the uniform and they said I could just take it off and swing in my underwear!

Well, boy howdy, if it wasn’t going to disgrace the Air Force I figured I could give it a try. After all, I learned my swinging on a sixty foot rope swing on the one of the biggest oak trees inMecklenburgCounty, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t lost my touch!

 I started taking off my shirt, kicked off my shoes and was starting to work on my belt buckle when the first shot rang out.

Yep, I said SHOT! It sounded like a fire cracker and I thought somebody was just funning over on the other side of the bar. Then the smoke cleared a bit and the second shot broke about 20 bottles in the bar rack and I saw a feller on the other side of the bar taking aim with a little ‘ol 22 pistol! Not at me, but in my general direction. Me and my friends all ducked down behind the bar and started duck-walking towards the front door. And I mean to tell you, my drill sergeant would have been real proud of me!  I was doing the 100 yard duck-walk dash, with my pants around my ankles in nothing flat!

There’s a lot more to the story, but I ended up getting arrested for running down 13^th street inWashington,DC half neckked, pants around my ankles, carrying my shoes with my hat clenched in my teeth! Hard to believe I know, even the Cop thought I was lying… but he did call one of them Police Delivery Trucks and had him take me and my friends back to Andrews AFB. They told the guard at the gate that I was not to EVER come back toWashington,DC again.

And I have never been up north since.

Besides, they talk funny up there. . . I guess the only good thing to come out of it all was, I didn’t have to pay for my drinks. And the memory of a neckked lady directly over my head on a trapeze is burned right into my brain!