Mick, Harp, Joe, Allan--thanks. Just what I felt about the grungy and grand old place. I did call last night---poetry night. They were busy & I'm glad. They had to put the phone down while Brian & Sue Kozin, the last owners, came to the phone and I got a chance to, for a final time, listen through the phone line to the espresso machine steaming while someone tried to perform. It was always smoke-filled there and I'm sure tons o' second hand smoke was ingested by me over the years. But no matter--that was life then. (We used too say: When I was young we didn't have cholesterol, but if we had, we would've fried it!) Life goes on and we live in the present. To quote Willa Cather in _Lucy Gayheart_ (a favorite book; page 1): "When we do mention the name it is with a gentle glow in the face or the voice, a confidential glance which says, 'Yes, you, too, remember?" And there's always a chance that the place will "rise again" (Stan Rogers) after 3 days---or whatever. In it's heyday, it didn't get the press or the notoriety that some of the up-town booze places got, but it persevered. For some of us, it was simply the best place to be.

The John Steinbeck book I paraphrased earlier in the thread was _Cannery Row_ .

Art