Kids will groan when you tell a story, complaining that they've heard it a hundred times. Then, one day, unaccountably, they'll ask you to tell it again. Go figure.
Back in the 70s, Billy and Debbie were two of the younger denizens of Kirby's Beer Store, a tavern located just across the street from the Wichita State University campus.
Kirby’s was a decidedly grungy bar, and kind of scary at night, but in the
afternoons it was populated mainly by WSU students (especially petroleum
geologists) and a few bottom-feeding professors from various disciplines (I
represented English), along with a large contingent of non-academic patrons
running the gamut from interesting through amusing to deeply disturbing.
Billy belonged to Mensa, but even so asked Jim the bar owner,
another student, plus three faculty patrons (including me) to appear as
groomsmen at his wedding, which transpired at the biggest Catholic
church in southeastern Wichita.
In true 70s fashion, for lack of a better word, we groomsmen were
elegantly costumed in cream-colored tuxedos with brown piping along the lapels and pockets,
and with shirts accented by ruffles at the cuffs and chest. More or less the Pips, except Gladys couldn’t
make the gig.
The huge reception—featuring a polka band brought in
from Nebraska—was held way across town in southwestern Wichita, the
cowboy-tough part of the city which at the time was more rural than suburban. To get
there, I rode over with Jim in his faded-blue, 40s-era Ford pickup.
Jim had earlier delivered several kegs of beer to the
hall where the reception was to be held.
But now, immediately after the wedding ceremony, as we drove along
ancient Highway 50 to the reception across town, he suddenly wondered whether
Billy had ordered enough ice to keep the beer cold.
Concerned, he pulled into an isolated, ancient filling station that
might well have serviced the 1919 cross-country convoy led by young Lt. Col.
Dwight D. Eisenhower. Off to one side, we
could see the station had a separate cold-facility on which, sometime in the very
distant past, someone had stenciled the word ICE. Along the front of the
main building, some old-timers in overalls and cowboy hats sat sunning
themselves, tilted back on wooden chairs.
There we pulled up near the old-style pumps.
Kirby jumped out, saying “Let’s go see about some ice,”
and then remembered that there was no interior handle for the right-side door
of the pickup, and also that the right-side window was broken and couldn’t be rolled
down. The door could be opened only from
the outside.
So as I waited patiently, Kirby did a half-circle around
the pickup, grasped the outside handle, and opened the door for me. Still dressed in my cream-colored tux with
brown piping and ruffled shirt, I stepped demurely onto the cracked concrete. Kirby, ever the gentleman, closed the door
after me.
“Thanks,” I said, almost audibly, and probably taking too
much time to observe the eyebrows of the crusty gents arrayed along the station
front.
“Got any ice?” Kirby asked a guy who was in what might
have been a uniform.
It turned out that this guy was the station owner, and he gave a
quick backward head jerk over his right shoulder.
“Yep. Back there,”
he said, turning, and adding pointedly, “You’ll have to haul
it yourself.”
Once in the cold room, the owner literally kicked huge blocks of ice toward us. We silently
loaded them into the back of the truck. When
we were done, Kirby took out his wallet and paid.
Slowing double-counting the bills, and speaking loudly enough
to be heard by the old farts in the row of chairs, the station owner slyly drawled,
“You boys havin’ a party?”
A brief silence, then--
“Just a few guys over for poker,” I said.
