Tales of the Big Bamboo

I beat 3 security guards to the door and headed for someplace to get a drink or two and naturally ended up at the Big Bamboo. Got talking to Bruce, the owner, and he and I laughed over the whole thing. Turned out he needed a bartender and I needed a job. The only condition he put on my employment was that if I quit this job the way I resigned my last position he’d be forced to kick my ass all the way to the county line. Fair enough I said. Now these many years later this place is more than just my job; it’s where I was meant to be.

Our founder, Bruce, may he rest in peace, converted a small cement block house in the late 1970’s into a combination drive through liquor store/bar. He parked an old Willy’s jeep and a spotter plane in an advanced state of disrepair on the front lawn (yes the plane is there buried in the undergrowth) and erected a two story wood tower to display the bar sign. No money has since been spent on external improvements. This includes the parking lot that can be mistaken for a lake during the summer rainy season. Now Bruce had served in WW II in the South Pacific with Pappy Boyington and his Black Sheep Squadron and like most veterans considered this to be the best of times and the worst of times. His taste in music began and ended with the Big Bands of the 1940’s, and this is the only music that we play to this day. Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey playing quietly in the background so that it doesn’t interfere with conversation. No rock and roll, no jazz, and no elevator music allowed.

Another Big Bamboo tradition lost in the mists of time is the one where Disney employees and others have plastered the joint with their name tags. I’d say there are more than a thousand badges on the walls around the bar. That’s mine up there in the corner. This collection has been joined by an diverse assortment of whatever else the patron that day decided to attach to the wall. This assemblage ranges from country flags, tattered beer ads, a huge horseshoe crab shell, a old lit artificial Christmas tree, a canoe, autographed tee-shirts, moose crossing signs, a picture of the EPCOT ball under construction, and pictures of Disney characters drawn by animators who worked with Walt himself. The walls barely visible beneath the collection are covered with split bamboo; hence the name of the bar. This entire compilation has been gathering dust and smoke for almost thirty years. The bar, floors, tables, and rest rooms get cleaned, but that’s all.

Of all this eclectic mix the strangest thing is the time traveling patrons. One night a couple of years ago there was a debate as to what should be on our newly created Big Bamboo web site. One of the suggestions that flew out of the gathered crowd was that we ought to bill ourselves as catering to the discriminating time traveling tourist looking for a true period piece. Being more than a little drunk at the time, I agreed to include that testimonial. I thought it strange at the time that there was a very enthusiastic agreement to that suggestion. Little did I know that temporal visitors had been stopping by for years? It seems that in the future we’re a well-known chronograhical destination.

As a group, time travelers try very hard to blend in, and most of the time you can’t tell who they are, unless you listen carefully.