Stories of bars (3 of 4): Surprising pleasantness.

Later I walked up back away from that (Irish-American) neighborhood into a slightly richer (Irish-American) neighborhood and stopped at this old bar-restaurant...

The kitchen was closing, but I convinced the old (white) waitress to bring me a bowl of their stuffed pepper soup, and she brought me a cup of it, and I settled in to watch a piano trio, an old (white) guy playing piano and a young (white) guy playing trumpet and an old (white) woman singing Burt Bachrach's "Walk on By".

The music was quite affecting, and then the woman sat down and another old (white) woman got up, and I realized it was liveband karaoke, with a crowd of people my grandmother's age.

This other old (white) woman was in her 80s and sang "Hey Big Spender" and then something else, and then an old (white) guy with a little goattee got up, and he started singing "Swanee River", and was a ham, but the way he held his hand up and shook it and was like, "My mother's praying for me/ Swanee" was very affecting...

Then, later, the first old woman got up again, and sang some song about redeeming yourself through true love, and it had this really affecting chorus that she kept singing -

Fame/ it comes and goes in a minute.... / Fame....

It was really quite something.  She said it with such authority, like life had taken her and shaken her up, and she had been around the block and never found happiness.

Later, I asked a younger (white) couple there if I could see their book, and they said there was no book, that was lyrics they had written down.

They also said the piano player had played with Wayne Newton and knew 900 songs, and if he didn't know the song he wanted, he could fake it for you.