The Last Tequila Day...For Now

It's a funny thing. Over the several years that I have been writing The Epic I have published some things I thought were great, some good and some just OK.  It depends on my energy level at the time.  Like most things. But it has always amused me that my "most read" post of all time, by a huge margin, is Tequila Day from July 2009.  I guess it just struck a chord with a lot of people. Or a lot of people love Tequila. Or whatever.

But a central feature of that chapter of The Epic was a cement block Mexican joint buried in the depths of the Florida panhandle.  An Impenetrable Hideout.  It even has its own little motel. Provisioned with barrels of freezing cold Dos Equis Amber on tap and all kinds of Tequila for use as a medicinal chaser. And the finest carne asada steak, beans and rice I have ever had. All essential for an effective I.H.  In case the real world lays siege to the outer walls.  I have spent more than my share of time in hiding behind those walls, I can tell you. 

So it caused me the greatest degree of dismay last week to see that this old joint is being knocked down as part of an insidious plot by the Department of Transportation to make some road alteration.  You can sum up much of the sorriness of our times by the increasing number of road alterations and the declining numbers of Impenetrable Hideouts.  Particularly Mexican food and boozing joints.  But there it was.  The formerly unbreached walls in ruins.  I felt like a crusader viewing what was left of the walls of Arsuf. 

Oh, they say they will reopen next year in another location.  Probably with a brand new building.  And shiny new tables.  And overdone lighting in dining rooms that are laid out in a planned manner, not a dim rabbit warren of anonymous dining bliss like the old place. The new place will probably even have windows.  Fiasco.

But I must remain strong. There is hope that the new location will have something of the old magic.  Only time will tell.  In the meantime, I am staging an orderly but hasty retreat behind the ramparts of a bar in an old house on a hidden waterfront in plain sight of a major thoroughfare.  That very few people know about including only a handful of the most trusty sorts in my occupation.  No food, just stiff drinks and odd nautical characters drinking them.  If you need me, find me there.  Last bar stool, back left.  If you can find me, we can talk.