World War II had ended and Ray J. was back from the Pacific and helping out his dad behind the bar of the Palace News in Parsons, Kansas. It was a little-bit-of-this and a little-bit-of-that sort of place, with newspapers, magazines, cee-gars, sandwiches, and a frosty mug ‘o suds.
Ray J. was known as Bud, since his dad was Ray J. the elder. It would have made me Ray J. III, but I suppose that was just too confusing. I imagine he was little Buddy first, then shortened to Bud later. Some of the cousins called him Uncle Bud, and I was okay with that, although I only heard him called by that name when we visited Parsons for the holidays.
There were a couple of stories that I recall about the place. In a letter addressed to the VA hospital where Bud was recovering from injuries suffered in a car accident, his dad wrote how he had brought out the guitar when Ray J.’s young friends had come round. They sang all the old songs, he wrote. It had never been mentioned to me that my grandfather played guitar, so the letter was a revelation.
There were no musical instruments in our house growing up, save the radio/record player. Ray J. loved to sing, but didn’t do it so much when we kids were older. He was a fine tenor and told me once how he and his buddies used to sing the Irish songs. Shame on me for not learning to play them along with all those Beatles songs. It might have endeared me a little more to him, given that he was no fan of current hits, which he called “thumpa-thumpa” music. He was listening to a Musak channel on television once when I walked through the room. It was a symphonic version of the Beatles’ – Michelle.
Me: You like that song?
Ray J., nodding: Sure do.
Me: That’s a Beatles song, you know.
Ray J., without a second’s hesitation: Too bad they don’t play it like that.
He was known to bring pals back to the house years later, after a long St. Patrick’s Day evening at the Elk’s Lodge. Some singing went on then. It was never discussed much the next day, as I recall.
Ray Senior was a marketing genius, to hear his son tell it. A traveling salesman managed to unload a case of Kleenex Travelers, those little packages of tissues, which made for a prominent display up near the bar. Ten for a Dollar, he priced them. Or ten cents each. The case emptied pretty fast, selling ten at a time.
Then there were the hard boiled eggs. A big, big jar with pearly white eggs bobbing around in some sort of brine. They were to be dipped in salt, according to the custom. A plate full of salt and a free egg – where can you go wrong there? Took a lot of beer to wash down those eggs and salt. The beer wasn’t free.
This picture is one of several found among the shelves at the shop. A shot of the Palace interior is often assumed to be the book store in the old days, long and narrow with a pressed tin ceiling. You can click on it for a closer look at the old cash register and wooden cabinets. Wish I had them in the shop now…
I regret that I don’t have a picture of me wiping down the counter at Paddy’s, back in my bar-backing days. It could have been added to this one and the one with Ray Senior smoking his cee-gar behind the taps at the Palace. Three generations of bar-cleaning, beer-pulling, descendants of Mamie Gillen of County Tipperary.
