The Tender Bar

As the place where all the men he idolized spent their time, Publicans itself came to stand for a kind of father figure to Moehringer. Publicans was where he could connect with his Uncle Charlie and his friends Bobo, Joey D, and Colt, as well as numerous other men with whom he bonded by visiting the bar. Because his own father was absent from his life, Moehringer felt that his connections at the bar were the father figures he needed.

Regardless of his age or situation, Moehringer could always turn to Publicans to connect with a man he admired. The author remembers, “They taught me how to grip a curveball, how to swing a nine-iron, how to throw a spiral, how to play a seven card stud. They taught me how to shrug, how to frown, how to take it like a man” (95). Over the many years of Moehringer’s childhood and young adulthood, these characters and voices amalgamated in his mind, turning Publicans itself into a paternal presence. Moehringer explains that “[a]t some point the bar itself became my father, its dozens of men melding into one enormous male eye looking over my shoulder” (8).