I recently read something that echoed what I felt and saw in those places that were stamped with the ambiance of the Moores. There was indeed a luxuriance of books, but there I saw something more important: "I saw life, real human life, as it is lived in this world, and saw at once that to be enlightened, to live a useful and enjoyable human life, most people did not need books at all, but only a genuinely kind heart, sound common sense, a kind good ear, a kind good mouth, and then liveliness to talk with really enlightened people, who would be able to arouse their interest and show them how human life appears when the light shines upon it." — Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1856)
The Green Dragon was to me, the physical embodiment of that ideal. The Moores created a warm place where people could gather while listening to classical and traditional musics. Joe had a pat answer for why he always played classical music, which was a rare case of a self-effacing comment. He'd say, "I have no taste in music, but I want to provide my customers with good music. I figure if people are still playing classical music all these years later, it must be good." He really had powerful and well informed tastes in music.
I am among those fortunates who have known the Moores and was influenced by their love of learning and their way of being in the world. As a freshman at UW-Whitewater, I lived in cabin #1 at the Green Dragon. The Moores got me involved in a local political campaigns, taught me to play chess, called on me to taste test their evolving pizza recipe, helped to inform my passion for traditional jazz, took me to car races, and shared their love for the natural beauty of Wisconsin. A few years later, suddenly unemployed when a pit orchestra gig ended abruptly, they arranged for me to meet with and to join the Piper Road Spring Band. Over the next few years in the band's slow seasons, they'd hire me to tend bar. A beautiful woman who waitressed for them was named Vicki. She later consented to marry me after we survived running the Ft. Atkinson Green Dragon Inn together in its last year of existence.
The Green Dragon in Fort Atkinson closed on our watch. Then, I tended bar for Joe again and was on hand as the Green Dragon in Madison closed. Art came and sang once more before a well-mannered (well-trained) audience. Twice I cleaned the bar after the last show at the Green Dragon.
I've been missing Joe for a number of years, and I suppose I'll have to continue to do so, even though daily I'm reminded of him.
Johnny

"I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There is nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began, —
I loved my friend" Langston Hughes