Some ruminations about the GSHA's former watering hole...

Lately, Chuck and I have been engaged in the pursuit of our comprehensive exams and have not been to the Bean for a while. We decided, after his completion of his Group Two exam, to go there and hang out for a while. Much has changed. Smoking is no longer allowed in the building. All the televisions are high-def flat screens - there's even one facing the outside through the window so the people on the porch can watch sports. The bathroom is devoid of much graffiti, beyond some of the cogent observations that I have placed on the wall. The food is EXACTLY the same. They no longer have Pabst's Blue Ribbon on tap. Most of the servers and bartenders are new and have no idea that we have a long history there.

Perhaps it is wistfulness that makes me write this. It is hard to go somewhere after spending so many evenings there with friends to not be somewhat nostalgic over the whole affair. At the same time, our recent visit merely confirmed what I had felt all along when we went there: I don't like Cool Beans! I never did! I just thought the atmosphere was too sports bar and too frat and too Bacardi Girls and body shots and "Dude!" Not that I am above that, but I had always envisioned the Long Branch as a more suitable historian hangout. To be sure, the Branch didn't have food, pitchers, semi-clean bathrooms, or Bacardi Girls.

I know, as the good book says in 1 Corinthians, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." I realize that all of this is about as important as whether Kroger's runs out of Chex mix when compared to issues such as world hunger, peace, and war. This blog entry has no real denouement other than to say that, now that I am in the twilight of my grad school career, I miss having a large group of historian friends there to share it with.