Chapter 4: Spilfters & Smulchkins - A Bar in New Orleans

Chapter 4: A Bar in New Orleans

I grew up in an adolescent culture that drooled over the nightlife of New Orleans. There was a Playboy Club there! On trips to the city for things like shoes and the dentist and lunch, we would occasionally walk down Bourbon Street in the day time. It was lively enough at that hour to set a youthful imagination off on fantasies of what could happen there at night.

Growing up in a dry county in Mississippi in the 60s did not mean there was no alcohol in the county. Our parents drank. Even Baptist parents drank. They usually did it in their homes or a friend's house, but they would go through some booze. The kids would often mix the drinks. By the time I was twelve I was adept at a strong scotch and soda with a lemon twist.

 Pearl River, Louisiana, was only twenty miles away and New Orleans was fifty. There weren't any interstates, so it could take two hours or more to get to New Orleans. The drinking age was eighteen and fake id's were easy to come by. The average sixteen year old in town  could show a fake id in a Pearl River package store and get a  pint of bourbon. Mixed with a couple large Dixie Dews from Colonel Dixie's hamburger joint just the other side of Hobolochitto Creek on the road to Carriere, and you were talking about a fun night cruising The Boulevard, chatting (talking shit in today's parlance) with friends, and hoping to catch the  eye of someone cruising in the opposite direction who might like to drive to a secluded parking spot and conserve gas. Or such was my fifteen year old dream for spending summer nights. 

My first excursion into this teenage dream world of bourbon, girls, and freedom was with my longest serving friend, Grady. We had been leading each other astray since our mothers arranged play dates where we would argue about who was going to be the cowboy and who the Indian. Grady was a few months older than me with more unfettered use of the family car. When he dropped me off after my first trip to Pearl River, Colonel Dixie, & some Boulevard cruising, it was ten o'clock. My parents were watching the news on tv. I walked in and immediately did a Dick Van Dyke over the coffee table in the living room, landing on my back. My mother with real concern that I had some polio-like muscular disorder cried, "Oh my God, he's sick."

My father wisely replied, "He's drunk."

Grady's parents were waiting when he pulled up a few minutes later. The next morning, as my head throbbed, the realization that my summer dream had been washed away in one fun night sank in. But the dream for future summers was still alive.

The next summer I got a taste of the holy grail. Grady and I borrowed an older friend's Playboy Club Card. We dressed like we thought some traveling business men might for a night out in the French Quarter. On the drive to New Orleans we perfected the stories that went with our drivers’ licenses from Idaho. 

Nervously we walked up to the door and rang the bell. The bouncer sternly scrutinized our club card and then casually checked our id's. Then the door to the reception area swung open. Beautiful large breasted women dressed only in tight shiny one piece bathing suits with a large cotton ball on their butt were showing us to seats around a coffee table and asking us what we wanted to drink.  

It is sometimes amazing that we can't see how we must look to other people. We sipped our beers and watched real business men with Playboy Club experience greeted with real enthusiasm and pass through the reception area into an inner sanctum. We strained to see what lay beyond the reception area. Our teenage imaginations charging off into first a fantasy of one giant orgy and then an intimate little room with one of our pin-up hostesses and then back to the giant orgy. No invitations came to pass beyond the reception area. No Bunnies showed the least interest in the stories we had made up about our businesses in Idaho. It didn't matter. I had been to the Playboy Club.

I think I have been a role model for people at times in my life. Drinking to excess is not something I would hope anyone would emulate. It was a mistake. Alcohol is a poison. Too much will kill you. Extended daily use of more than a few ounces will have serious negative effects on your body. Driving while under the influence of alcohol is lethally dangerous and the consequences of being caught driving under the influence can stay with you a lifetime. Lessons I have learned. Some I learned more quickly than others. 

I come from a culture that used alcohol to fuel celebrations. I come from a family that used it as  daily medication. It is not possible for me to deny that some of my most deeply moving and satisfying memories have alcohol involved. Growing-up my parents seemed happier and more lively when they drank, and when I started drinking, I felt happier and more lively. There was a fine line between fun drinking and excessive drinking. That line seemed and still seems to fluctuate. The more fun you are having, the quicker that next drink sends you over the cliff of excess. The teenage dreams of barroom nightlife where there were girls who would talk to you and drinks to provide euphoria and courage turned into a young adult fantasy of owning a bar in New Orleans.

When it was time to apply for college, Tulane in New Orleans was top of my list after my parents nixed Stanford because of all the hippies in California. The city did not disappoint. The fraternity I joined had a mid-week drink session at Cosmos in the back of The Quarter. This was a joyous brotherhood with accompanying sisters who would drink mid-week gin and tonic specials and sing loudly along with Joe Cocker about getting by with a little help from our friends. And many weekends were spent in The Quarter hanging out with friends, people watching, and sharing a bottle or two of Ripple, Rioja Sangria, or MD 20-20. 

During this period I had a very brief stint as a waiter at Your Father's Mustache on Bourbon Street. I spent  all afternoon on New Years Eve, 1971, at the bar. You were expected to be there at 5 pm, but the manager decided when it was busy enough for you to punch-in and start earning your fifty cents an hour. All the wait staff was on for the night, and since I was the last hired, I punched-in last. For four hours I sat at the waiters' table and watched the place fill-up. Slowly waiters would be called to start working until I was the only one left. A customer came and sat at the table. He offered to buy me a drink. I thought it was seasonal good cheer before he started fondling my butt. I moved. 

Tips were not shared. By 2 a.m. I had made $11, not including my $2.50 salary check which would include anticipated tips on the w-2 for income taxes later. The streetcar stop on St. Charles and Canal was crowded. After waiting ten minutes, I decided to hitch hike. This was not uncommon in the early 70’s.  After about five minutes a beat-up car stopped with two guys in front who looked like they were on something. They asked where I was going.

I smiled and answered, "Tulane."

They smiled at each other and said, "Get in."

I looked in the back window. The rear seat had been taken out. It was just the floorboards, plywood, and assorted trash. I thought about my $11. I looked at the crowd of people waiting for the streetcar. They all started shaking their heads with a look that said, "Don't be an idiot. Don't get in that car."

I turned back to the car, "Thanks, I'm going to wait with my friends."

I joined the back of the line as a streetcar could be heard making the turn onto Canal Street.The next day I turned in my notice.

This experience did not kill the dream, though. Working the bar was fun, but owning the bar was the dream.

After graduating college I worked three years for the family business mostly selling chemicals to companies that made paint and adhesives. It was an interesting time in industry. Interest rates were taking off. Sales were great. We couldn't make enough stuff. President Nixon put a price freeze on products. No one paid attention. You changed the specifications, called it a new product, and introduced it on the market at whatever price you thought the market would bear.

I was not a fan of Nixon, but the way some of his staunch supporters ignored what he was trying to do for their economy caused me to reconsider my career choice. At the time I was playing rugby for the New Orleans club team which was in its second year. The captain of the team, Bob, had been a friend for a few years. We had played together the year I played for Tulane. He told me about the graduate program at Tulane he completed to become a teacher.  Tulane found you a job as a teaching assistant and gave you reduced fees for a year. At the end of the year you had a Louisiana teaching certificate and some hours towards a masters degree. 

Bob gave me the program director's name, Dr. Rita Zerr. I called Dr. Zerr. It was May, 1975. She asked me to come for an interview as soon as possible. At the interview she said the program was very close to full for the next year.. She was leaving soon for a summer course she taught in London, "The Open Classoom".  She asked if I would be interested in going on the summer course.

I embraced it all. I returned to work and told my father I was leaving the family business to become a teacher.

For the previous year I had been co-social chairman for the rugby club with Dave "Vicious". This meant that we went to whichever brewery was sponsoring the club that weekend and picked up the keg. For awhile it was Dixie which was the best. 

The area where we signed the paperwork and picked up the free keg was where the trucks pulled in to have kegs loaded. There were two taps in the side of the cooler where the kegs were kept. You could help yourself, and many of the drivers were cooling off with a cold one. Dave and I were happy to wait with the drivers, who kept our cups full, while the paperwork was completed and the keg brought out. Then we picked up ice at the Claiborne Ice House. There were two old fellows there always sipping on something. We started bringing a pint to share a bit and then leave the rest. One of the old guys had never left New Orleans partly because he was a little nervous about crossing a bridge. Dave took him fishing in Slidell.

Dave and Bob had started a painting company together and were doing o.k. They were looking for another business venture. I had the idea that scooter rental in The Quarter was the way to go, and Dave and Bob were in temporary agreement. We spent an afternoon looking for a place to rent. We found a bar with a side patio that might have worked. The excursion cleared up one thing. Quarter rents were way more than we could afford.

The owner of the bar in The Quarter  we had considered was the attorney for Johnny Van Vrancken, legendary  owner of The Ballroom for wedding receptions on Jefferson Highway. He knew that Johnny had a place uptown on Magazine Street that was more in our rent range. We weren't going to be able to rent any scooters up there, but we could run a bar. 

Spilfter's & Smulchkins Ruggers Pub was born. The origin of the name comes from a vision I had once on the types of people there are in the world.

This would, also, be a help to Dave and me as co-social secretaries for the rugby club because a few places had asked us not to come back. It was not as easy as it might seem to convince a bar owner to let you bring in a keg of beer to give away to thirty sweaty guys who might launch into singing bawdy songs on a Saturday afternoon. The bar also had a three bedroom apartment upstairs. Dave and I were both looking for places to live as was Steve Davies. 

Steve had played football for Tulane. He was a tall number 8 and Dave and I were the wing forwards. Those positions become very close over a season especially when you live together. We beat LSU or came close a couple times and LSU was very good in those days. They had outstanding backs and their pack was strong with Rugby Hall of Famer Big Red Causey.

The dream of bar ownership was happening. I was exploring a new career. I had a very comfortable relationship with the girl who would become wife number one. The disappointment  of others that I was not following their dream of me pursuing a career in the family business was not harsh.  

On the summer trip to London for the course on “The Open Classroom” I collected  posters from pubs to decorate the bar. Bob and Dave got an order of green wood from somewhere around Lumberton and covered the previously garish red wall paper. The wood would eventually shrink as it dried creating an eery effect with lots of places for cobwebs.

We tried to share out equally the day-to-day running, cleaning, ordering, stocking, accounting, and bar tending. My girlfriend and Bob's wife, Patty, helped out. They took deliveries when Bob and Dave were painting and I was teaching. Bob, Dave, and I each were responsible for two nights a week bartending. The bar was closed one night a week. I had courses at Tulane two nights a week.

Opening night we were packed. My family came. Grady even came. Closing night we were packed. Every night in the middle was mediocre to poor.We had the rugby club business, but that was only Wednesday after practice and after home games on the weekend. If the team was out of town, we closed for the night because we were on the team. And after the games most of the players drank the free beer and then went home to shower and go out someplace nice. We were on the dive bar side of nice.

We had a couple regular customers. One lived across the street. He would drink until he couldn't balance on the bar stool. He would piss on the bar. Eventually he would pass out. It was always a little bittersweet when you saw him come in when it was your shift. You knew you could be in for some disgusting clean-up, but also you had someone in the bar until closing time. If he passed out, Dave and I would haul him across the street and lay him on the mattress his girlfriend had put outside the back door. We considered the ethical issues of selling him drinks until he passed out, but we figured he would just do it someplace else. We were cheaper and closer to home. 

Jim Fisher was a regular customer. In 1959 Jim had assisted Conrad Albrizio in painting the incredible 120 foot long mural in the New Orleans train station. Jim would come in every afternoon for a couple beers and then stroll three blocks up Magazine Street to his workshop where he slept. Although Jim was an amazing artist (He told me once that Vincent Price was a collector of his work), he was at the time we knew him making signs for a living. Dave and I started visiting his workshop on occasion to learn a bit of his craft. He would let us help with gold leafing or try to chisel a letter out of a piece of wood. He had a tiny forge in his backyard. A couple of times we banged and twisted on heated iron rods to shape them into some part of a sign Jim was fashioning. In our second year of business Jim agreed to paint our sign in exchange for free beer for life. After a month of free beer Jim said we were even and started paying again.

When you entered Spilfters & Smulchkins, there was a long bar on your right, a little half wall separated the bar from an area where we had a pool table and a dart board that was dangerously close to the door to the men's bathroom. We had a few chairs and tables. Johnny Van Vrancken's advice when we signed the lease was to not have too many chairs, 'People buy more drinks when they have to stand up.' We had some board games on the end of the bar next to a pre-microwave sandwich warmer. Stewart sandwiches supplied us with the warmer and packaged hamburgers and hot dogs for our culinarily desperate clientele. We had a large back area that we used for storage until the Burrito Brothers rented it and really improved our food offering. There was an outside patio area with stairs that went up to the apartment. We had cheap drinks, and  we gave out free peanuts. Like lots of New Orleans the bar had a rodent problem. The rats in the neighborhood heard about the free peanuts soon after we moved in.

One quiet night well into our war with the rat world I was working the bar. The bar was empty. I was catching up on school work when a nice looking yuppie-ish couple came in and sat at one end of the bar and ordered gin and tonics. After I gave them the drinks and peanuts, we talked a little about the bar, how long it had been open, about the bar's name, and then they went back to talking to each other. I sat on a stool in front of the cash register, right behind the ice machine, and started grading papers. Then I saw a huge rat sneaking around the corner of the bar. It climbed into the peanut box. After a second of amazement, I started to think about what to do when another rat came around the corner, climbed in the box, and the fight started.

The couple couldn't see what was going on. They could just hear this strange high pitched grinding noise and see some sort of commotion behind the bar. I kicked the ice machine which scared both the rats. They hopped out of the peanut box and ran into the back room. I looked into the puzzled faces of my customers. I could tell they hadn't seen the rats. I explained, "Damn, ice machine. It acts up all the time. Sorry, can I get you another drink? Peanuts?"

Life was a little wild at times. Perhaps one of the most bizarre adventures during this period didn't involve the bar. It was after a rugby match with LSU. We had the post game party at the bar, but one of the New Orleans players, Harvey, invited people to his apartment for a meal. He was going to make his special baked cinnamon apples. 

Dave and I got a ride to the party with one of the New Orleans players. There was a good mix of people from both teams. Harvey asked Dave and I to help with the cinnamon apples. Our job was to stuff the inside of the cored apples with buttery cinnamon stuffing and put the apple on the baking sheet. After about six of these we were getting bored. Dave suggested we look in the cupboard for what else Harvey might have to stuff apples. He had a can of sardines. 

The evening passed. None of the rugby players mentioned getting a sardine and cinnamon apple. Maybe they tasted good. As the party was winding down one of the LSU players, Boyd,  was about to drive back to Baton Rouge alone. Dave and I thought this was too dangerous. We volunteered to go with him. After stopping for a bottle of MD 2020, we settled in for the ride to Baton Rouge with only a joking concern for how the hell we were going to get back. 

When Boyd waved goodbye and headed off to his Baton Rouge life, reality crept in a little as we stuck out our thumb and began to sober up and grow bone weary. A couple of rides over the next few hours had us dragging along a deserted Airline Highway on the outskirts of LaPlace in the middle of the night. On the side of the road was a house that was being moved. It was getting very chilly. We crawled through the window of the house and pulled the peeling linoleum over us.

At first light we had our thumbs out. We caught a ride almost straight away to where the interstate from New Orleans ended. This was 1975. The interstate didn't go all the way to Baton Rouge. Just as our ride dropped us off,  my girlfriend, who would become wife number one, made the u-turn at the end of the interstate. She had gone out for a morning drive. She didn't know I wasn't asleep in the apartment above the bar. She was going to make the u-turn and head back to New Orleans. Another minute and we could have been standing there all day.

We later heard from Harvey that he served the apples to some business associates on Monday, and they found the surprise apples.

Summer was rapidly approaching and rugby practice and games were ending. Summer in New Orleans made painting a difficult full time profession because of rain and heat. We were almost breaking even at the bar, but not paying ourselves anything. Dave and I had cheap rent, and we were paying half-price for what we drank. But because we owned a bar where we lived, we were buying way more than twice as many drinks as we normally would.

During the spring season a New Zealander,  who was working on a sailboat on a bayou just outside New Orleans, joined the rugby team. His regular profession was a tree planting contractor in Canada. He invited us to spend the summer planting trees in British Columbia. He described a life of easy money putting little seedlings in the ground while enjoying a relaxing lifestyle camping in the Canadian Rockies. We would make ten Canadian cents per tree and in 1976 the Canadian dollar was stronger than the US dollar. He told us about people who planted three hundred trees a day. We turned the bar over to my brother, Lil Eddie, who had just graduated from high school and closed our minds to the ramifications of all the underage drinking that would ensue. The drinking age was still eighteen in Louisiana.

Another friend, Jim, who was finishing a graduate degree in engineering at Tulane decided to come along. Jim would go on to not only a career building tunnels and elevated railways around the world, but also photographer for DeepSouthRugby.net. We loaded-up Jim's well-aged Chevy truck with a homemade camper on back and Bob's VW van and headed west. We had a drive-away until Salt Lake City, and then Bob, Patty, Zoe (their two year old daughter) and Panda (their dog) were in the van with Dave and his dog, Chanelle. I could choose to squeeze in the van or the truck cab with Jim and his girlfriend, Patsy. We drove through Yellowstone very close to its opening day for the season. Snow was piled so high on the sides of the road you could see nothing but white walls ten feet high right next to the window.

We pulled off the road in Idaho to spend the night. There was a cabin with a sign that said ,"This cabin is to be used, not abused." Dave and I were going to sleep in the cabin.

The cabin was on the side of a snow covered forested hill that went forever. It cried out , "Sled me!!" For a boy who had only seen snow twice in his lifetime before going away to military school in Indiana this was beyond belief. Dave had gown up with more snow and sledding experience, but this Idaho mountain was awe inspiring. We hauled the plywood Bob and Patty were using for their bed out of the van. The first run was marvelous. Everybody was taking a turn. The run was over a mile. Hauling the plywood back up the mountain was not so much fun.

It was getting late. Setting up camp wasn't going to take long. We looked at each other and back down the mountain we flew. It was dark when we got the plywood back. Dave and I put our sleeping bags in the cabin and were getting the Coleman stove set-up when a group of local teenagers drove-up. This was their drinking spot on a Friday night. We chatted with them a little,  and they shared a couple beers. They started a fire which made the place smoky. Exhausted I sat outside in the freezing air wrapped in a sleeping bag. The sky was clear. The Milky Way seemed to mist cream across the sky. The moon cast mountainous shadows on the snow covered  hillsides in front of me.  An incredible adventure that deserves its own chapter was beginning.

The bar survived the summer. Lil Eddie had sold a lot of booze. Unfortunately that didn't seem to equate to a lot of deposits into our bank account, but nobody had gotten hurt or arrested. Also,  once our eighteen year-old bar manager moved on, our younger drinkers moved back to F&M's Patio Bar.

Soon after the start of our second year in the bar business a couple of guys, whom we called the Burrito Brothers, rented the other side of the bar. They made very good  burritos and sold them around town.  With their rent and the apartment rent we were meeting the monthly rental, and we added burritos to our food offering. We became part of the neighborhood. The guys from the carpet company across the street came in after work. A caterer down Magazine Street would bring in left overs after a gig. Occasionally a wake at the funeral parlor next door spilled over into the bar, but we were still not paying ourselves anything. 

I was in my first year of full time teaching with my own fifth grade classroom. I looked forward to a quiet bar on the nights I worked. It gave me time to grade papers and prepare. Usually on a school night I could close by 10 p.m. The take would be around $20. On one school night as I was getting ready to close, a group came in.They were well into their party. They were buying pitchers of margaritas, burritos, and even buying me whatever I wanted to drink. When I locked the door at 2 a.m., I had about four hours before I would have to get up to go to school. During the day, a student came up to my desk to ask for help on an assignment. While I am explaining the problem, the student got a funny look on her face. She said, "Mr. Crosby, you smell like wine."

During the Canadian trip I had grown a full beard. I smiled at the little ten year-old and replied while patting my beard, "New aftershave."

As the next summer approached, the realities of bar ownership were seeping the fun out of the dream. Bob was starting law school. Dave started a construction company with a friend, Al. I had found a career that I was passionate about. The bar business was a threat to our emerging dreams and our health.

On a normal Friday evening in late spring I was tending bar. At about 8 pm there were three people and one dog in the bar: my girlfriend (who would soon be wife number one), Dave's brother (who had been staying with us for a few months),  Al (Dave's partner in the construction business), and Al's Rhodesian Ridgeback. Two guys with large hats pulled low on their heads walked in. One walked up to the bar and asked for a Falstaff. The other guy stood back against the wall.

I checked the cooler. Summer was coming. We were lowering inventory. There wasn't a Falstaff. The guy asked for a Schlitz. I looked again. There weren't any Schlitz. I turned to tell him the bad news and found myself looking down the barrel of a pistol. I started to volunteer to go down the block to another bar and get the guy a Falstaff when it dawned on me he didn't really care about the beer. His partner had a gun on the others at the bar.

I saw the dog asleep under a table inches from the guy holding a gun on his owner. The week before three people had been shot dead in a bar robbery just a few blocks away. I started looking for a place to hide if the dog woke up. The loud clunking ice machine was looking like the most bullet-proof option around. I wish I could say I was concerned with the safety of my customers and especially my girlfriend, who would soon become wife number one, but looking down the barrel of a gun made me very self-absorbed.

They cleaned the thirty dollars out of the register. Our customers had maybe another twenty dollars on them which is very sad in itself. The dog did not wake up. It was over in five minutes. The police station was four blocks down Magazine Street. I ran there. It seemed quicker than going upstairs to find the phone number. This was before 9-1-1.

The police said they would get on it and for the customers to wait in the bar. 

I walked back and told everyone the police were coming. We waited. We saw police cars roll down Magazine Street, but no one came. Two hours later I called the police station. They had forgotten about us. They sent somebody to talk to us and told us it was unlikely they would find the robbers.

We closed the bar for the summer. Bob went to Canada to plant trees, again. Dave had work with his construction company. I was going to travel to Europe with my brother. My parents nixed the idea of my brother going with me. My girlfriend decided she would come with me. Our parents did not think it would be easy for us to travel unmarried in Europe. They threw together a wedding in a week. 

When we got back, nobody's heart was in keeping the bar going. Life was moving on.  The bar fantasy turned into a tedious chore with a momentary nightmare and then disappeared. We had our best night ever the night we closed. Grady came.