I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

One thing I have realized, is that so much of my life truly does revolve around hospitality.  

And I have discovered that there are so MANY stories to share.  

Some fun.  Some painful. Some educational.  Some just are good stories.  

One such story.

In 1992, I was in grad school at the University of Kentucky, getting an MA in theater.  I was in my fourth year there as a grad student.  In a 2- year program.  

Actually, my classwork had been done for 2 years.  I started in 1989, and finished at the end of the 1990-1991 school year.  All I needed to do was write my thesis.  Which didn’t require much.  A one-page paper about something or other.  The degree was production based.  

However, I’d been told my whole life, and I do mean my whole life, that I was a bad writer.  I was embarrassed to turn anything in.  Instead, I kept working in the department as a designer, adjunct, painter, TD, electrician, carpenter, etc. to keep putting it off.  

I’m not exaggerating.  The reason that I had not graduated, on time, was that I was afraid to turn my thesis in.  

My life was such that I work in the theater department during the day, and at night I bartend at the local O’Charley’s restaurant on Nicholasville Road.  I didn’t even ask to be a bartender there.  I applied to be a server, but the they didn’t need servers, they need bartenders.  When they ask if I could do it, I said OF COURSE, how hard could it be.  And presto, poof:  I was a bartender.  

For those not familiar, it’s what a friend used to call a brass and fern restaurant.   Lots of brass to polish at the end of the night, lots of ferns to water at lunch.   Most of the O’Charley’s were located in old Bennigan’s restaurants.  

This particular location, had a busy bar.  Especially Thursday nights which was 10 cent wing night, and all-night happy hour.  2-4-1 on all well drinks and draft beer.  For every beer ordered, I pulled 2.  Sometimes 30 or 40 at a time.  I served Miller Lite and Bud Light in 16oz plastic cups all night long.  These were the only 2 beers we had on tap and fun fact, NO ONE, AND I REPEAT, NO ONE could tell the difference in the 2 draft lines.  Trust me, I tested lots of people on this fact.  

Another fun fact:  My boyfriend at the time, would come in and eat at the bar several times a week.  No one, had any clue that he was my boyfriend.  He’d sit by himself, chatting with me, while I did my bartending thing.    

I digress.

So there I am bartending on the fateful afternoon of March 28, 1994.  

A day that will live in infamy for ANY ONE who was alive and well and living in Central Kentucky that day. 

Picture this:  

The University of Kentucky is ahead 103–102 with 2.1 seconds remaining.  

The energy in the bar is insane.  People are screaming.  They are yelling.  There is no way in hell that Duke can get a ball to the other end of the court and score in 2.1 seconds.  The game is ours. 

Duke called a timeout and drew up the final play where Grant Hill would throw a long pass to Laettner at the opposing foul line. Hill’s 79-foot pass found Laettner at the opposite foul line, and Laettner dribbled once to his right, then turned back to his left and shot a turnaround jumper over Feldhaus just before time expired. The ball swished through the net as the buzzer sounded, giving Duke a 104–103 victory.

There is a moment of silence when things like this happen.  Where you can hear a pin drop.  Where the air in the room stands still.  Everyone stops breathing.  No one’s heart is beating.  

Then there is a collective inhale and all hell breaks loose.

The bar exploded in terror as people began to curse, and shout, and scream their dismay.

A good 50% of the people who are reading this right now, probably experienced this live.

But here is where my experience and your experience probably differ.

About 7.4 seconds after the shot.  About 5.2 seconds after the buzzer.  About 3.6 seconds after the room realized the outcome. 

A whole section of my bar started to scream that Laetner was a f*g.  

A f*gg*t. 

It was not 1 person, or a couple of people.  It was 20 or 30.  Many of them were my co-workers.  

It went on for what seemed like forever.  

I sat there, in my own dismay, but it was no longer about the game.  I no longer cared about the score.  The game.  The outcome.   

Such hatred.  Such outrage.  Such vile, disgusting words.   

Their hatred was so intense.  The hatred, that they’d surely have for me, if they knew that the kid who comes in on Thursday night, for wings, was my boyfriend.

In what was probably less than 30 minutes, the bar was empty.  

I got a clean towel and started putting the room back together.  Wiping up the stale beer from the bar rail.  Filling my ice wells for the evening.  Re-stocking liquor.  Emptied a bus tub.  I closed all the checks.  

An hour later, it was just me and a server. 

The game was over.  

The score was not in our favor.

The score was not in my favor.  

 A day that would live in infamy.