Honky Tonk Saturday Night

I had a good friend who played fiddle in a country band in Colorado in the early to mid sixties. He used to like to quit early. He said if a fight hadn't broke out by midnight, he would ask some girl to dance and about half way through the dance he would slap her and then the fight would start. He would pack up his fiddle and go home.
 
All the old time Honky Tonks in our county have folded. Still lotsa Juke Joints [pronounced JIENT]. A famous S.C. Highway Patrolman who was tried twice for killings he was involved in used to tell us wonderful stories of coming on the Beach in 1953. He and one more Patrolman was all the law there was in our county. A county larger than the state of RI. As long as there was activity, he had to stay out. He said many nights he would go in honky tonks and jukes and cut the plug off the Juke Box and tell everybody they had 5 minutes to get out. Can you imagine doing that today? Another world.
 
That reminds me of a place called Tin Hall, north of Houston in Cypress. When I was a teen we would go there a couple times a month, drink some beer and dance with as many girls as we could convince/connive out onto the dance floor. It finally shut down a couple years ago.
 
My first beer joint bar fight, a guy broke my nose, and I broke his collarbone. That taught me pretty quick about HonkyTonks.
 
Long Beach, Calif had a significant population of transplanted red necks who came out during WWII to work the defense plants. A few others had come out during the Dust Bowl and had migrated South from the Central Valley. We had, of course, "The Pal" (Palomino) in North Hollywood but equally "well known" and a bit rowdier was "The Foothill Club" in Signal Hill.

My grandmother used to date one of "The Sons of the Pioneers" and the Foothill was a regular hangout (They seemed to alternate between the Foothill and the Olympic Auditorium for wrestling and roller derby). I grew up listening to the stories she told. She was 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Chickasaw/Cherokee from Oklahoma, born on the Rez, and raised in Missouri, so use your imagination!

When my brother and I reached our 20's, we had to go there (we passed it at least once a week==Mom and Dad lived about 5 miles up the road and we lived 5 miles the other way). It was..........interesting! We nicknamed the bouncer "Rhino" and decided he wouldn't be hard to take out if TWO of us hit his knees. We always sat near the door, facing the door (for a quick exit) and drank our beers from the bottle. The times when a couple of "donnybrooks" started (remember that word) and things went "Fist City", we threw our beers and ran like H....!!!!

My wife once asked how my mom raised three boys and my mom answered "we didn't -Not all lived. The others took a lot of first aid." That was normal for the 1950's. All families had lost at least one child or so it seems.

And I'm the peaceful (aka cowardly) one in the family.
 

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