Bud's Bar

You will find a common thread with many of these stories; they all seem to involve alcohol.  This is no exception.  College days in Boca Raton, Florida were no picnic.  What can you expect from a town with a name that translates to rat’s mouth?  The average age of the local residents was around 102 and the main attraction was the Bibletown Auditorium.  The drinking age was 21 but fake ID’s were pretty easy to make out of the center carbon copies of the original of a Florida driver’s license.  Once placed inside a dirty wallet picture holder they would easily pass a casual glance.

While most bars in Boca Raton were upscale clubs catering to the wealthy locals, Bud’s Bar was a dive near the railroad tracks that catered to day laborers.  The barmaid was legally blind with shot glasses for eyewear.  A perfect storm for underage drinking.  On this particular evening there were about eight or nine of us who arrived in two cars.  One of the cars of note for the purposes of this story was a 1957 Buick Roadmaster convertible.  It was driven by Hank the Nazi.  Now the Nazi’s political leanings are not relevant here but for the purposes of accuracy let me say he was a card carrying member of the American Nazi Party and looked remarkably like Abe Lincoln.  Beyond that it is his car that bears mentioning.

1957 Buick Roadmaster Convertible

Bud’s Bar was a two story building that was probably a converted residence.  In fact there was an apartment upstairs.  Since our group represented about 95% of the evenings clientele things started getting out of hand pretty quickly.  Someone decided they wanted a barstool for their dorm room.  With a nearly blind barmaid as the only responsible adult in the room the barstool quickly vanished.  After a few beers several of us thought it would be funny if we played a joke on Hank the Nazi.  We found a storage shed at the side of the building with some old aluminum beer kegs and some rusty garden tools.  We loaded them into the Roadmaster.  Several trips to other areas of the bar produced a number of relatively worthless items that got piled into the convertible.  A quick trip up the outside stairs provided access to the upstairs apartment complete with a passed out drunk.  A table, a nightstand, a small dresser were carried down and all piled into the Buick.  We thought about carrying the drunk downstairs for placement in the Buick but sane heads prevailed.  I don't know who had a sane head at the time but it surely wasn't me.  We left just the driver’s seat vacant and piled everything in the back and front passenger seat.  The pile now was well above the top of the doors and way too high to put the top up.

While Gary and I went out to the front porch to purloin a neon Budweiser sign, someone at the bar decided they needed the peanut machine.  Gary and I had to find a screwdriver to unfasten the neon sign and in the process of so doing, time passed.  When we finally worked our way around the building with our new sign we discovered we were pedestrians.  The two cars were gone.  The only things that remained were a couple of pieces of furniture that had fallen out of the Roadmaster as it made a hasty escape.  We would find out later that the blind barmaid discovered, while wiping down the bar that the big money maker, the peanut machine, was missing.  She called the police and everyone bolted.

Gary and I decided, not knowing the urgency of our situation, to casually walk back to campus.  We were about a block away when Gary stopped and realized that he hadn’t said goodbye to someone who had bought him a beer.  He insisted that he had to go back.   I told him I would wait for him next to the vacant lot where we happened to be.  Gary walked back and no sooner had he entered than two of Boca Raton’s finest drove up to Buds and entered.

I quickly evaluated my options.  I used my earlier developed Boy Scout training and decided to hide.  I walked into the vacant lot and placed the neon Budweiser sign in some tall grass next to a small palm tree.  I walked a little further and found a large cardboard box about the size of a water heater.  Perfect.  I curled up in the box and waited.  I must have nodded off because the next thing I knew someone was kicking my box.

Now Gary was the only one who knew where I was so I immediately assumed it was him.  I yell whispered, “Go find your own damn box, the cops are here.”  I heard laughter.  I crawled out the top of the box into the light of a huge flashlight, the kind cops carry.  It was in fact a cop.  Gary thought the cops were just being kind and were giving him a free ride back to campus.  As kind and conscientious as he was he couldn’t let his good buddy Jack walk home.  The cops didn’t have to search very long once Gary told them that I was left next to the vacant lot.

We were still in sight of Bud’s Bar when another car pulled up.  It was the bar’s owner who was irate.  That damned peanut machine was worth hundreds of dollars and he was going to prosecute us to the full extent of the law.  I was instantly sober.  Cops have that effect on me and the threat of a criminal record finished the job.

The wheels were spinning.  I asked if I could speak privately to the bar owner.  I guess the owner thought I might want to bribe my way out of the situation so he agreed to listen.  I did try to bribe him but not in the way he expected.  I told him about the eight or nine of my friends who I would call as witnesses.  He wasn’t interested until I told him that, except for Hank the Nazi, all of them were minors.  He quickly added up the per capita fines that he would be risking and weighed that against the $300 peanut machine.

When we returned to within earshot of the waiting police he was all smiles.  He now understood that it was all a college prank.  He would drop all charges if we would return the peanut machine.  On the way back to campus one of the cops turned and asked me, “What did you say to that guy to have him change his mind?”  I just smiled.

We made it back to the dorms and they let me go up to find the rest of “the gang”.  As expected they were all gathered in one room.  I explained what happened and said we needed to return the peanut machine.  

There was a slight problem.  It seems that Hank the Nazi drove his car to some remote area and dumped all of the stuff in his car, peanut machine, beer kegs, everything.  He then drove back to campus, parked his car way out in the campus lot and called campus security to report his car stolen.

We left Hank to “un-report” his theft and one of the other guys led us back to the peanut machine.  The following day I returned to the vacant lot and retrieved my Budweiser sign.

That Budweiser sign adorned my dorm room and subsequent domiciles until it was eventually broken in storage in my Mom’s garage.  I was told of its demise while I was in the Navy.  I was upset but then relished the memory of my night at Bud’s Bar.