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A Civilized Bar and Cafe

Long ago, not far away, we dreamed a dream.

Almost thirty years ago, Mari and I talked our way
up to the third floor of Pracna's, a part of the dining saloon
no longer used, where our table looked over the Mississippi
toward downtown Minneapolis, and drank margueritas
from pint Mason jars:  it was that time in our culture.

Pracna's isn't a very elegant saloon, even yet; worn
and dark and hopelessly narrow.  The dining room
expansion to the side is uninvitingly sterile.  But every once
in a pleasant while, we return to Pracna's to celebrate
something about what a good thing we did in the early 80s.
Yesterday it was a report from a radiologist that said
Mari's regular examination for breast cancer was negative.

Pracna's first opened in 1890, where it still stands.
In 1892, Republicans re-nominated for the Presidency
in a great hall nearby, and Pracna's helped them celebrate.
He lost to Grover Cleveland:  worth drinking to, also!

Frank Pracna sold to "Boney" Denell, but then WWI
and Prohibition came, and Pracna's and 434 other bars
in the Twin Cities had to close.  A machine shop opened up
downstairs, and a brothel went into gear upstairs.  Well,
times were tough, and if sin is booze, then what can
a saloon do except buy a lathe and rent out the upstairs?

After the machine shop closed, a mattress factory opened,
probably inspired by the old upstairs supplemental income crew,
and then even a Hearing Company.  Hear the mattress?

In 1973 the saloon reopened:  "Pracna on Main, Civilized Bar
and Cafe".  Loyal Rue told me about it, not long after.
Lord knows how he learned about it; probably from a
fallen friend!  Yesterday, the margueritas were in fancy glasses.

Glenn Beck was in blackface, getting ready for his
dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial.  John Boehner
was bobbing up-and-down in a tub of orange Kool-Aid.
Mitch McConnell was imitating bread dough.  The faithful,
out in California, were getting ready for Judgment Day
next May 21st.  John McCain was looking for his maverick.

At Pracna's on Main, the sun was shining on the river,
just up from the Stone Arch Bridge, near Third Avenue,
and Mari and I ordered margueritas, in a real place,
where real people had civilized beers together,
where the machine shop once rumbled, and the mattress
factory once thumped, and thought about the time
when we had sat at the window in what once had been
the brothel, and drank margueritas from a Mason jar.

It was all so civilized.  And so real.  So good.

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