Now that he's gone, I've been thinking about my dad a lot.

One of my favorite memories was something we witnessed about 20 years ago. Deer hunting with my dad there was a 'bar' smack dab in the middle of the woods; dad and I would go there after hunting for beer and burgers. On this particular evening there were 3 HUGE lumberjack looking dudes sitting at the bar. They were facing outboard, watching the bar, minding their own business, just sipping beer.

This very drunk little guy (the top of his head probably was chest high on these dudes) comes up to one of them and says, "Hey! You're a pretty big guy. I bet I can kick your ass!".

Lumberjack dude is so cool he does not even put his beer down, he simply reaches down with his free hand, wraps it over the top of little-guy's head and says, "Go sit down little man." And then without letting go of his skull, lumberjack rotates littleman 180 degrees and in a surprisingly gentle motion, pushes littleman back towards his table. (where he goes and stays).

That's the story. No fight, but it could have ended very differently if Lumberjack had been in a worse mood. My dad and I decided that Lumberjack must have gotten a nice deer that morning and didn't want to spoil his weekend by fighting. One of the coolest "bar fights" I've ever seen.

Having been in the nightclub business I have been in and witnessed several.

We once had a large biker type start to pummel another customer. I was the first to reach him, and in a failed attempt at an arm lock ended up hanging from his wrist. He continued to hit the other guy a few times with my 150 pounds swinging from his arm. Luckily my staff was a few seconds behind me and got everybody separated.

Everybody, including the guy who was getting the worst end of that deal, was pretty impressed that the big guy could still swing that hard with that kind of weight at the end of his arm.

Yes and yes.

But it's been years.

In my late teens - 20s I was in several melees. Indoors, outdoors.

Took some blows, dished out some blows. It pays to keep moving and not get fixed in one spot.

Nothing really spectacular either way, but it does get the adrenaline going.

Now I have too much to lose.

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In high school there was a little beer joint just over the county line that would sell us beer even though they knew we were not of age. It was popular with the local loggers and pulp haulers. Had a few skuffles there. In my early 20's I ran the bar scene pretty hard in Houston, then Austin. Had a few tussles along the way. Got my ass handed to me pretty good in front of Wild West, a place we hit 3 nights a week for a year or more, one night after drinking way to much and talking shit to the wrong cowboy.

Had a ton of fun, kept all my teeth and grew out of it at about 25 years old....

I haven't been involved in a barroom brawl since my time in the Army in the late 60's. Nothing brutal, just young guys with to much machismo and beer in their belly.

Jim

When I was stationed on Okinawa, we used to hit the local bars. I am 6'4" and at that time weighted about 225. I did not drink.

Inevitably the smallest drunk in the place would try to pick a fight with me. It always ended very quickly and violently.

I quit going to any bars. It was not worth getting in trouble, ending up in the brig, or worst.

The best times were sitting at a table, having someone come over trying to start a fight, me standing up, not saying a word, and watching them quickly change their mind and slink away.

What could go wrong? Marines, Sailors, Army, booze and tetestorin.

I was in a stop joint, small seedy type, around 2:00 am and a fight breaks out between a group of patrons and the security staff. Chairs flying, guy gets slammed on a table table breaks, all the while we are giving the stripper singles to try to keep her on stage. When the glasses and bottles started flying, she got down on all fours and crawled around picking up her cash and then got off stage.

Police came, and ran us out of there.

Best I saw was a tiny Asian stripper run out of the club in full heels and beat the shit out of some drunk lady on the sidewalk. Don't know what they were beefing over but I can still hear that lady's head hit the ground. Bouncer got the stripper back in the club. Cops showed up and the drunk lady gave them a go too. She went 0-2 that night.

As a little dude with a pretty face I steer clear of nonsense. I got nothing to prove.

Kid I went to high school with got killed with a knife in a fight at a bar (over nothing) when we were in college. I started drinking beer on my front porch after that. Cheaper and much safer.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
Kid I went to high school with got killed with a knife in a fight at a bar (over nothing) when we were in college. I started drinking beer on my front porch after that. Cheaper and much safer.

Older brother of a kid I went to school with got killed with a knife in bar fight in Houston too. I knew both brothers well, we grew up in the same neighborhood.

Yes and, because I knew where the door was, no.

I don't tell this story often, but I feel like you all will get it.

I worked the door/bounced at a club called the Moby Grape here in Las Vegas from about 1979 until January 1, 1982. As you might guess there was plenty of knuckleheading going on there. I'm not a big guy, 5'11", and about 190 at the time. Someone always wanted to put me to the test.

New Year's Eve 1981 was roaring as you'd expect, & there were a few that had to be asked to leave. Among those were some guys who proclaimed their objection by informing me they were coming back with a gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard that a couple of times a month. These guys did in fact come back with a gun. Before they made it to the front door of the club they traded words with some people in the parking lot who'd witnessed their justified expulsion. In a minute one of them shot a good guy in the head & he died a couple of days later.

I knew him personally. He was the drummer for a band that played there frequently.

I went into a funk for awhile after that.

That was the last night I worked the gig.

As close as I ever came was a co-worker when I was a telephone lineman. He rode bulls, back before it was popular, on the weekends for something to do and extra cash. Of course much of the extra cash went to get him out of trouble or pay for the damages he created.

Unfortunately I wasted too much of my younger days in bars so yes and yes.

Fortuneteller I managed to grow up.

seen but not been. As to that lumberjack in the OP, lots of big guys have that same issue, little drunk guys wanting to take them on.

Yes, I worked in a strip joint for a little while.

On a couple occasions customers thought they could put their hands on the dancers on or off stage, that did not go well for those guys.

I arm-locked one guy while the manager pummeled his face - broke his nose and bleeding everywhere, he wanted to fight so he got the shit beat of him. This other guy was pretty drunk so I knocked him down and dragged him out by his feet down the stairs - donka, donka, donka. Both of these guys were hauled off to jail by the deputy Sheriff.

Went to college with a guy who ALWAYS needed to start a fight after he had been drinking beer for an hour or so...

He was big and tall and a college wrestler, so he could hold his own or win most of the time. Last time I was willing to drink with him was when the dude he picked on pulled out a wicked long blade. We all dragged our drunk friend out of there to keep him from getting slit open. I refused to go drinking with him after that...

Witnessed a few, mostly college crap. Daytona Beach spring break, Panama City spring break, the thing I learned from watching those fights is this; there are people who think they can fight and people who CAN fight. Sometimes who can tell which person is which. Sometimes you can't.

I saw a kid who looked on the smallish side completely take down and make a huge dude his bitch. I learned later the smaller dude was a college wrestler. He actually made the big dude cry.

I was caught up in a couple in college and worked briefly as a bouncer. It wasn't my thing, but fortunately I wasn't drunk while the other participants were. As your story indicates, alcohol makes even the smallest fellow ten feet tall and bullet proof.



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