WHILE MR. BOJANGLES DANCED FOR DRINKS AND TIPS...
...I sign painted my way from bar to bar, midway to midway, painting signs along my itinerant route for many years, for drinks and tips, one time accidentally painting 'The Silver Dollar' on the door of 'The Golden Nugget' but Ray - the cook known as Foggy - thought it was funny and never told me until I was done, nor did anyone else, the laugh's on me, big joke, and it was to me too because when I was done and went up to the bar for my remuneration in the guise of a couple more pitchers of beer, double shot o'rye neat & chow (the greasiest baconcheeseburgers the world has never known) well everybody was laughin'...
...Lucille was leavin' Kenny Rogers on the jukebox, usually that kind of tune means that a barful of sots are blubbering, but laugh? Soon I found out.
Chuckling, Foggy handed me my pitcher and burger, my shot of rye and bade me do it over again, this time with the right name on the door, which I did and after which he bought me another round, bid me adieu and I stumbled off blinking into the hot afternoon sun (to a drunk the worst time of the day is a 3 pm bright August afternoon when you have to leave The Nugget and stagger down Center Street past shops, shoppers and the working throng, in order to get to the railroad tracks and disappear into the protection of The Weeds) but anyway - off I was to 'The Tom Thumb' restaurant at the fairgrounds to see which of its signs needed upgrading...it's all so long ago and far away, but then this morning seems light years away too.
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