63RD STREET BARS, SOUTHSIDE CHICAGO, 1972

63rd street had bars...and alot of them.
The "Gaslight lounge" is where my brothers friend, Bob English...
ogled my date, Kathy. She was a flirting kind of girl.
Bob was 13 years my senior...A pathetic drunk.
But a nice guy...He bought us drinks.
Kathy knew how to work him.
Bob was built pretty good, but he had a bad case of acne.
He was a lonely sort of guy.
I liked him anyway.
He died of lung cancer when I was 28 years old.
I went to his wake, probably to pick up girls.
Lord only knows, where Kathy ended up.
I drank with my dad at Tommy Kraw's lounge, on Kedzie avenue.
Kraw's was a late night joint, where a guy in his 20's could pick up older women for sex. It was a great buffet table of older bimbos...just there for the picking.
Little Joe's Pizza place had its Italian singer Aldo, singing "George Washington Bridge"...We were drunk and stoned on grass...It was hilarious.
He sang in broken English...Our dates loved him.
Me and the boys had fake I.D.s after high school.
I was an alcoholic by the time I hit 20.
I had the time of my life.
Back then, we didn't have alcoholics.
They were called bums...they layed in the gutter.
If you worked, you were AOK.
The slum of my life was good.
The women, the drinks, and the cacophonous laughter.
It all goes by now, in my head, like a blur.
It's all too fast...too dangerous.
It is too fleeting...I woke up old.
One bar after another.
One cigarette after another.
All too fast.
63rd Street.
It's still there, but like a tomb.
It's a dirty slum...
Where other young men, live their dreams.
Someday perchance to ponder...
63rd street bars...faded youth...fast women...fast cars...
good times.
They will be just like me.
Ah, the memories.
63rd street bars.