Thanks to my Bar Food Night crew and the good folks and patrons at Grown Folks Blues and More, I can cross an item off of my “Bucket List”: sing the theme song from “Cheers” in a bar and have the bar sing along with me.
In many ways, Grown Folks that night was a place where everybody knew my name, if only because the owner, the indomitable Ms. Nancy, introduced me to everyone as “the nice young man who wrote that newspaper article about us.”
Well, Ms. Nancy, here’s another one.
Admittedly, I had been in a bad funk as of late.
The usual “sturm und drang” of college-age life has been beating me down.
The real world and my exodus from graduate school rapidly approaches.
Real life is coming, and I’m still not sure I’m quite ready for the transition.
The battle between teaching and journalism has been going on for some time, and neither side seems to be willing to give in to the other. My subconscious looks like the Battle of the Somme at this point.
Enter my friends Adam, Jordan and Stephanie: staples of the Bar Food Night crew.
“Ms. Nancy’s tonight around 7:30 if you can make it,” Adam’s text said.
“Of course,” I replied. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
As I walked into the familiar and oddly lime green building, I could feel the stress actually leaving my body.
I was greeted with hugs and well-wishes from Ms. Nancy and the rest of the gang, and we were quickly informed that Wednesday was Karaoke Night as the bar.
“Heaven help us all,” I said.
We quickly poured over the songbooks, each picking songs suited to our various personalities and quirks.
Adam favored country, save a lovely duet of “I’ve Got You Babe” with his girlfriend Stephanie.
Stephanie threw some soul into the mix, giving Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” a go with yours truly as her backup Pip, helping me practice for another eventual McCollum lifetime goal: becoming the first white Pip.
Jordan brought the house down with his rendition of Weird Al’s parody song “White and Nerdy.”
And me?
Well, bolstered by the courage of one of Ms. Nancy’s famous Pink Flamingos, I struggled my way through a Sinatra staple or two, a Sheryl Crow/Kid Rock duet with Ms. Burnett (a homecare worker who can throw down vocally), the aforementioned “Cheers” theme, and, yes, even Biz Markee’s 1989 classic hip-hop comedy song “Just a Friend.”
Yes, dear readers, I can rap … if it’s slow, comic rap from the late 80’s.
Ms. Nancy’s rendition of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” was a favorite of the night, and as she sang it, it dawned on me why her place was so special to us.
There, we can let our hair down and just be.
We can sing our little tune, even if it’s horribly out of key (me, ninety percent of the time).
We all need a place where we can see that our troubles are, indeed, all the same.
We all occasionally need to go where everybody knows our name.
This week, I’m thankful for family and friends, but, most of all, I’m thankful for these little worlds within our world where we can just be.
Let’s all take some life advice from the great Ms. Nancy: “You’re too blessed to be stressed, baby. Just pray on it and it’ll all be OK.”
Amen.
In many ways, Grown Folks that night was a place where everybody knew my name, if only because the owner, the indomitable Ms. Nancy, introduced me to everyone as “the nice young man who wrote that newspaper article about us.”
Well, Ms. Nancy, here’s another one.
Admittedly, I had been in a bad funk as of late.
The usual “sturm und drang” of college-age life has been beating me down.
The real world and my exodus from graduate school rapidly approaches.
Real life is coming, and I’m still not sure I’m quite ready for the transition.
The battle between teaching and journalism has been going on for some time, and neither side seems to be willing to give in to the other. My subconscious looks like the Battle of the Somme at this point.
Enter my friends Adam, Jordan and Stephanie: staples of the Bar Food Night crew.
“Ms. Nancy’s tonight around 7:30 if you can make it,” Adam’s text said.
“Of course,” I replied. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
As I walked into the familiar and oddly lime green building, I could feel the stress actually leaving my body.
I was greeted with hugs and well-wishes from Ms. Nancy and the rest of the gang, and we were quickly informed that Wednesday was Karaoke Night as the bar.
“Heaven help us all,” I said.
We quickly poured over the songbooks, each picking songs suited to our various personalities and quirks.
Adam favored country, save a lovely duet of “I’ve Got You Babe” with his girlfriend Stephanie.
Stephanie threw some soul into the mix, giving Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” a go with yours truly as her backup Pip, helping me practice for another eventual McCollum lifetime goal: becoming the first white Pip.
Jordan brought the house down with his rendition of Weird Al’s parody song “White and Nerdy.”
And me?
Well, bolstered by the courage of one of Ms. Nancy’s famous Pink Flamingos, I struggled my way through a Sinatra staple or two, a Sheryl Crow/Kid Rock duet with Ms. Burnett (a homecare worker who can throw down vocally), the aforementioned “Cheers” theme, and, yes, even Biz Markee’s 1989 classic hip-hop comedy song “Just a Friend.”
Yes, dear readers, I can rap … if it’s slow, comic rap from the late 80’s.
Ms. Nancy’s rendition of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” was a favorite of the night, and as she sang it, it dawned on me why her place was so special to us.
There, we can let our hair down and just be.
We can sing our little tune, even if it’s horribly out of key (me, ninety percent of the time).
We all need a place where we can see that our troubles are, indeed, all the same.
We all occasionally need to go where everybody knows our name.
This week, I’m thankful for family and friends, but, most of all, I’m thankful for these little worlds within our world where we can just be.
Let’s all take some life advice from the great Ms. Nancy: “You’re too blessed to be stressed, baby. Just pray on it and it’ll all be OK.”
Amen.
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