A Blast from the Past

Every now and then I have nothing better to do than look back at some previous part of my life, and I usually end up laughing. I suppose that's a good thing, but some times I'm not so sure, anyway ...

Someone mentioned going to gay clubs, and I recalled some of my coworkers I used to hang out with down in Gainesville, and where we'd go. Gainesville is an odd town. It's a big town, but hardly a city, and the plethora of students and generally progressively minded folk made it rather open to all sorts of people (sadly with all sorts of smells, but that's another blog). Anyway, me and my friends/coworkers would often go to this establishment known as the University Club, or simply UC.

If you've clicked on the hyperlink, well, you know what type of establishment it is. If not, let's just say they were proud of the fact that the entrance was in the back. Depending on what night you'd show up, you could see a real eyeful, but if you stuck to Thursdays it was rather heterosexual friendly, plus that's when all the drag queens performed. More than a few actually worked at the same company as me. What's odd is looking back to how many times I went to an un-air-conditioned gay bar in Gainesville, Florida (arguably the hottest sweatiest place in the US). On top of it all, I'd drag (maybe not the best word choice) back to work, only to see many of the people I saw the night before (sometimes they were expressing a different gender).

I honestly think I went out more on Wednesday and Thursday than Friday and Saturday (Friday was house party night and Saturday was pretty much the same). Wednesdays I'd either go to a coffee bar for open mic night at a Common Grounds, a coffee bar that also had good beer--cheep! or if I was hangin' with a posse, 80s night at the rotator. The place was called that because the bar rotated. Well one of them did. Since the place was owned by ABC liquors, it had like 5 bars in a small venue, and everything was cheap house brand stuff ($3 long islands--big ones!). The dance floor was a crazy Saturday Night Fever-style light up affair. What really topped it all was the reality that the other six nights a week the place was a redneck bar (it was 10 miles outside of town).

Oh, speaking of cheap long islands--there was Ashley's Mexican Pub (yeah, what a concept), which featured long islands and margaritas in goldfish bowls. The best part was they were $4. The worst part--you needed to alcohol to cleanse your mouth from their less than stellar food. After a few, you wouldn't give a shit.

Ah, those were the days. I don't miss them, but I do think about them every now and then.