I love George...

Down YellowDog, Down!!! George Russell, not George Bush. I was piddling around my house this rainy Sunday morning and I thought of George and some of the outrageous things he used to say and do and I had to smile. We lost George in 2000 but he's never far from my thoughts so I thought I'd share him with you.

Many moons ago I was the "daytime" bartender at a little bar in Round Rock, TX. I used to joke that I would develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because I listened to war stories all day from a bunch of retired veterans, often the same stories, verbatim! Little did I know how dear these crusty old goats would become to me, and I to them. But George was my favorite. Even though, when Andy hired me he told me George would piss me off and he didn't want to hear it...and he told me I'd piss George off and he'd get a phone call at home and he didn't want to hear that either! Basically he told George and I to act like grown ups and work it out between us. He never got that phone call and George never did piss me off but Oh it was so much fun to watch him piss everyone else off! He was a master!

He was not a "nice" man so if you ever got a back handed compliment from him, be wary, the other shoe was about to drop. One girl, I can't remember her name now, had the misfortune of wanting to the jukebox behind George's stool...he sat in the same stool every day. The bar was rectangular shaped and my area was "inside" the box...George's area was the immediate vicinity of his barstool and any person he deemed his personal target that day. This girl was leaning over the jukebox looking at selections when George turned around and said, "Letitia (that's her name!), you're legs are looking good today, good and strong." Letitia beamed after the shock wore off and said, "George, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me!" George took a drink of his Miller Light, turned back to me and said loudly enough for her to hear, "Have to be strong legs to hold up an ass like that." Vintage George, impeccable aim, direct hit.

Every bar has their own "chattie Pattie", you know the clueless woman who sits next to you and if you acknowledge her in any way she will talk for hours, long after you've stopped listening. One day Chattie Pattie sat next to George and I thought Oh hell, this isn't going to go well. I kept checking over there once in awhile to see if George had maimed or killed her yet, but George was carefully rolling up a beverage napkin. To my surprise he stuck one in his left ear and began rolling another which he stuck in his right ear. He looked like a bizarre Caucasian version of Shrek but of course he didn't care. He motioned me over and I leaned in and he said, "Damn Robin, if someone tied a string from her jaw to her feet she'd walk herself to death!" He seemed hopeful that could actually happen. Chattie Pattie of course, was oblivious.

Even though George came across as a complete ass way, way down deep inside people don't come any better. An acquaintance of mine got picked up for a DUI (not from my bar mind you!) and called me wanting me to get in touch with George to see if he would bail him out. I did and George said, "I'm on my way..." Five minutes later he was picking me up and we were off to Georgetown on a rescue mission. We were idiots! George bailed him out but we had to wait an extra 3 hours because George pissed the jailer off, something about her incompetence being as hard to take as her looks...Anyway, I was kind of surprised at this turn of events as I didn't know George knew this fellow that well. Found out later, he didn't, he though I did, I didn't either, to make matters worse...I let this acquaintance spend the night on the couch in my apartment and the next morning I had to work at 10:45 and this guy asked to borrow my car to go retrieve his stuff and his work pickup and talk to his boss. He dropped me off at work and was back at the bar by 11:20, he sat down and had ONE beer. I had forgotten that I needed my electric skillet from home to prepare our famous chili dogs for the football game that afternoon so he graciously offered to run to my apartment, 2 blocks away, and retrieve it, in my car. 15 minutes later a firemen friend of mine called me and said "Robin, where's your car?" without thinking I told him and he said, "Bad news sweetheart, he totaled your car and took off on foot." 6 minutes after that he called me and said, "Oh shit Robin, I wrecked your car." I suggested he keep running. Went over to George and filled him in. He just shook his head and said, "Hell Robin, we got us a business...G&R's bail bonds/halfway house/and Car Rental. Get drunk and be an idiot and drive and get caught? Hell, Call us, we'll bail you out AND loan you another car." See? Idiots. I don't know why I was surprised to go get my belongings from my poor totalled cougar to see 8 empty beer cans in the back seat. It was only 11:45 A. freaking M.! Never again! But see, George had a good heart if someone needed help...just not a lot of sense. I found out later he only did it because he thought it was me asking. We were glad we could laugh about it later, it could have been so much worse. Thank God no one was hurt and my insurance company came through...got a cool jeep later.

He used to hate the table tents with the drink specials that "littered" the bar and would throw them away when I wasn't looking. I'd dig them out, clean em up and put them back, out of his reach...but it'd continue. Finally got pissed off enough that when I changed them I took the old ones and taped them all over his car. Also, in the mornings when it wasn't busy I'd make the rounds to see who needed a beer before I went into the office to do paperwork. Of course George was "good" and 3 minutes later the phone would ring and I would answer and it would be George at the end of the bar saying in his cell phone, "who do I have to sleep with to get a beer in this joint?" I was in his sight and within shouting distance but nooo, he had to call. So one time while I was "cooling it" (there was a chest freezer for mugs in front of his perch and he would tell me to come "cool it" by sitting on it and talking to him.) I examined his phone and wrote down the number. A few days later he had to go to court (divorce court...again!), he came in for a few minutes and one beer before court and I kept asking him, "George, you need another beer?" and he'd say no. When he left I waited an hour and called his ass and said "George, are you sure you don't need another beer?" He whispered angrily, "hell no and you just got me in trouble with the damned judge!" I did too, the judge was reaming him out when his phone rang and hizzoner said, "well obviously you can't read either Mr. Russell, better answer that. I'm sure it's more important than these court proceedings as you have indicated many times!" Oh he was hot! But still, never called Andy to complain!

I'll never forget the day he left the bar to go move his ex wife out of his home so he could move his other ex wife back in. That was fun. He eventually remarried the ex wife he moved back in, Lawanna, so she started coming to the bar with him, she was a hoot as well. I was invited to the wedding which was in his back yard and he said "come casual, we'll be grilling and swimming afterwards." Myself and my cohorts came in swim suits with suit jackets and had a ball. The only thing that marred the lovely wedding was George stopped it by insisting the justice of the peace make Lawanna say the "obey line"...she finally said, "Fine, I promise to obey your stubborn ass!" Of course she broke that vow many times!

George had cancer by that time and he pretty much lost his voice with the chemo, but that didn't stop him. Lawanna got him "shark pills" that were supposed to cure it and everything else she could think of. But the marijuana pills for the pain were a hoot. They had a Pomeranian named "mister"...George would be all stoned and take 85 pictures of Mister in his recliner. "Here's mister looking sideways, here's mister looking up, here's mister laying down...." He was convinced he'd missed his artistic calling.

By the time George was diagnosed I had left the bar (as an employee) and gone "on the road" with my new job. I was home when we had George's "roast" at the bar. He insisted I tell his favorite joke about the boots, so I did, I really couldn't say much more as I knew in my heart this would be the last time I would see him. Many people turned out including the almost toothless woman bartender from a neighboring bar who had come. She had gotten to know George when he was banned from "our" bar for throwing beer bottles into the trash behind the bar and making them break...the bartender at the time had had it with him and banned him for 30 days! She was homely but sweet. George motioned me over to him and sat me down and said, "Robin, you know I'm dying right?" I told him I'd heard that rumor and he mused for a second and said, "I know I'm going to heaven because I am a good son of a bitch (that's up for debate!)...but I'm afraid that all the angels are going to look like Elaine!" The toothless bartender from down the road. Again, vintage George with his cruel humor in the face of death...then he looked at me earnestly, his voice raspy and said, "Robin, I'm glad you got out of this bar, you don't belong here and you never did. You're the best person I know and don't let anyone tell you different. Don't ever let the bastards get you down...promise me!" I knew what he was asking, he was asking if I was going to be okay and to leave this dark place and never sell myself short again...I had come out of a horrible marriage and pulled myself up but I knew as well as he did, for awhile there, I was lost and close to becoming a bar stool jockey full of despair...but I hadn't and If I had or do so now, he will haunt me for the rest of my days. He was telling me he was proud of me...and that he loved me. I could see it in his eyes. I promised.

I was in Charleston, SC when I got the call. I went out to a park bench waiting for the tears to come. The wouldn't seem to. Then, some navy pilots flew over me in the missing man formation and I heard the distant crashes of a 21-gun salute. Apparently they were having a military funeral at the nearby Citadel, but I felt it was for me. It was so appropriate because George had been a navy pilot in WW II. I looked up and watched that lone plane on it's last journey and the tears came then through my smile. I looked up and thanked God and thanked George Russell.

Today in that small neighborhood bar in Round Rock, TX there is an orange velour shirt, a picture of George, and his navy hat framed in a shadow box mounted to the spot about "his" stool. The orange velour shirt is there because I hated it so much and reamed George every time he wore it! Told him he looked like a smurf or that a pumpkin had thrown up on it. He wore it to his roast in my honor. It went in the shadow box as testimony to our unlikely friendship. The only bartender that hadn't pissed off George and the the only bartender George hadn't pissed off. I've only been back once since then and it was hard to see. I won't go back again. I've kept my promise and my memories of that place remain. I prefer to think that all the same old goats are still in their same stools, telling the same stories drinking their same brand of beer and occasionally remembering me fondly. We've lost many from those days but in my mind, they are all exactly the same.

George left me his car in his will. He knew I wouldn't keep it (deeded it to Lawanna the very next day.) but he knew it would make me laugh. He just wanted me stocked up the next time G&R's bail bonds/car rental place had a client! Lawanna knew it too, we laughed and cried over it. George's last "gotcha". He always did have to have the last word, the last laugh....