On Sunday February 4th of 2007 — the day of Superbowl 41 — our house in Vestal, New York, was empty.
The wooden floors — that had been protected by rugs and furniture for over a decade — were now shiny and bare. The walls — including the ones that Debbie had made me paint twice when she changed her mind on the color — were now only decorated with outlines of where picture frames had blocked the sun. And rooms that we once knew every noise and bump of, now bounced strange sounds through empty spaces.
The new job I had accepted, came with a complete relocation package, which included a team of packers and movers that marched in and took our entire life — beds, bicycles, furniture, the kids toys, clothes and ten years of living — and squeezed it all into one single truck; into 208 square feet of moving space. Or 52 square feet per person. Or 19 square feet, for every year we had lived there. And all that life, all that stuff, was now parked in a storage lot for a week, until we could close on our new house, two states away.
But we would need to move out now, in order for the new owners to move in. So we would leave the town where Debbie and I had first met — at Energetics Health Club, just three blocks from our house — and where our wedding reception was — The Vestal Steak House on The Vestal Parkway — and we would leave the area that we had known for years, leave the neighborhood, the family, and the familiar.
But first, we would go to the Superbowl and going-away-party at Jennifer and Dave’s next door. The entire neighborhood would be there and we would say our goodbyes and then we would come home for one last time. We would climb into our sleeping bags that were spread out on top of air mattresses and we would sleep. And then in the morning, we would leave.
And the house at 317 Frey Avenue in Vestal — the place that had been home for eleven years — would belong to someone else.
Now, when we first bought the house — this was back in 1996 — that move was so much simpler than this one. Going from our small apartment to that big house was incredibly easy and only took my cousin Brad and I a few hours. Plus, we were only a family of three then — Nick was a toddler and Alex hadn’t been born yet and we actually wondered how we would ever fill that big house.
That first night that we spent in our new Vestal home, back in 1996, Debbie and I had sat in the living room together. We had put Nick to bed and were watching Aladdin — the cable wouldn’t get turned on until the following week and we only owned kid’s video tapes — and it was then that Debbie made the announcement.
“Go get us wings.”
Now in Endicott, where our old apartment was — clear across the river — there were plenty of places to get chicken wings and Debbie and I had become complete Endicott wing snobs over the years. But we were in Vestal now.
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Go find a place.”
Now finding a place for good chicken wings in upstate New York is not as difficult as you think. It’s like trying to find a good show in Vegas, or a great fishing spot in Maine. The corner bar-and-grill always had the best food and there were hundreds of them around. So I got in the car and drove.
And that’s when I found The Terrace.
It was packed inside when I walked in but I made my way up to the bartender.
“You look lost,” Lynn spoke over the noise of the jukebox and the crowd, but she was smiling.
“Yeah, I might be. How are your wings?”
She gave me a look that was a combination of — what, are you stupid? Mixed with — don’t insult me by asking. So I ordered two dozen wings to go, and sat at the bar and nursed a beer.
I would stay there for the next eleven years.
At least once a week we got wings, or sandwiches or some other food from The Terrace — and of course you have to go there to order it. And I became a regular. The Terrace became my bar and I became a part of it. Now I never stayed late, I was always home by six o-clock, plenty of time for dinner with Debbie and the kids, or I brought dinner with me from there — and I was rarely there on weekends. Just once or twice a week for a few hours; the minimum amount of time required to hold my place in the pack. Just enough to keep the bar a part of me and me a part of it.
Now, everyone has a roll to play at a bar. You have your experts on everything — Mike. You have your big shots — Chris the lawyer and Jimmy the broker. You have the pack leaders — big Frank and Remmy. You had borderline criminals — Newt and the haircut guy, and you had a potpourri of assorted bar characters.
And at The Terrace, I got to play the part of the writer; a fun roll that required very little work and absolutely no writing. You just needed to talk about writing once in a while and as long as there wasn’t another writer that was already accepted as part of the group — which happens a lot — then you get to be it.
And then you can cool phrases used about you, like — you should tell Everett that story, he’s the writer.
I cried at The Terrace. But I laughed there too. And I always left before I really wanted to. And I did this for eleven years; from 1996 to 2007, and during that time I belonged to The Terrace and it belonged to me.
And then 2007 came and we moved away.
And although I thought about the bar — a lot — I had never been back. Not even when I’d be passing through that area — I guess I was afraid of not wanting to see something spoiled or ruined. So I never went back.
Until last month.
I was in town heading to Syracuse for a meeting and didn’t want to drive any further, so I checked into The Hampton Inn in The Vestal Parkway and then headed for The Terrace for wings.
It’s humbling to go back to places that were once important to you. Just because you left, you expect them to wind down and stop but they continue. And there are all new faces. With all new groups, that come with a different pecking order and a new gauge of respect and esteem. And you want to grab these people and tell them that you were part of this once too. That you sat where they sat and you passed the same tests they did. And that there was a time when your group — not there’s — were important to this place.
It’s sad when time moves on without you.
But it’s even sadder when it doesn’t.
I had just walked through the door of The Terrace and was working my way towards one of the many empty barstools, when I heard my name. Then I heard it again. Then again.
After nine years — they were all still there. Mike. Sam. Big Frank. Remmy. Lynn. All of them.
They were all still there.
And I sat at the bar and ordered my wings. And the back-slaps and the handshakes started. And then those little blue plastic chips began to build up around my beer glass — this one is from Mike. This is from big Frank. And I took my position back.
The great crowds are now gone from The Terrace. The once strong blue collar area has dwindled, with most of the coveted high paying factory and manufacturing jobs all but vanished. And many buildings are empty, some with broken windows and grass growing through employee parking lots that once held hundreds of cars and trucks. So the large crowds had moved on, but the people at The Terrace who held court over them, have remained at their post.
Since I moved, I found the time to finally finish that book I was always talking about and it had been out for a year. And although they all knew about it, they teased and congratulated me, those accolades didn’t give back the emotional dividend I always dreamed it would.
Because it wasn’t that I moved on from The Terrace. I didn’t. I just — moved. I cheated. I didn’t graduate or wake up one day and no longer need it. I just took the bar out of the equation. And if we hadn’t moved, if I hadn’t evaded that decision, would I still be there too?
I never found a bar in Dover — where we live now. I remember looking for one when we first arrived, but I didn’t look very hard. And I don’t regret my time at The Terrace, but I don’t yearn for it either. That might be maturity, but I doubt it.
It’s just that — over time you begin to see the beauty in the unassuming parts; work, writing, the house. Because older men crave all of those things — we thrive on it. We hunt it. Older men need results.
Younger men don’t.
They need bars. Where all you need to do is dream it. Brag about it. And promise to one day — claim it.
And if your do that — then it’s real.
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