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Barred: Crackerjacks Pub
When: Wednesday, 7:20pm
Crackerjacks (no apostrophe) looks like it has been there for years. I don’t know, it might have been (and I don’t want to look it up). I don’t remember it from my youth, though it’s entirely possible that it has been on this corner at the edge of Northwest Portland since the ‘70s, more like a hold-out year-after-year. Ok, I looked it up–it’s been there since 1982.
Along with the Lighthouse, this has become one of my favorite Portland dives, discovered in middle age. Strangers give me compliments. There are marionberry jello shots. Also, $4 beer and wine at happy hour, plus something called “krispy kritters.”
An illuminating conversation started unfurling on the outdoor patio, between what I eventually gathered was a brother and sister. The woman, with her back to me, dressed in many shades of army green with a hooded, non-puffy vest, and a tuft of gold-blonde hair with dark brown roots,. appeared to be on the middle-age cusp so I paid particular attention to her for clues.
As if on cue, she said, “when we’re old farts…”
The brother, bald with a gray beard, the de facto look for 75% of men over 40 in the NW, countered, “I’m much more likely to die before you.“
“Part of being an adult is you care about your health,” said the sister, and I realized we were the only two not smoking at the mostly occupied picnic tables.
“Let’s be honest, I’m not going to have a baby.” Which I would rather have heard from the sister not the brother. Then, while lighting a cigarette, “I’m not trying to kill myself.”
“You’re not going to find a partner like that.”
“I’m not going to find a partner anyway.”
Age appropriate? There has been plenty of non-young women on several occasions. A woman by herself announced that she was 48, unprompted. Well, kind of prompted by the young woman sitting nearby who recognized all the ‘80s songs playing. “How old are you?” the 48-year-old asked. Almost 24.
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Barred: Nancy Whiskey Pub
When: Tuesday, 8:40pm
What did I drink? Two Maker’s Marks on the rocks, one unmemorable beer
“Do you mind moving down? It’s going to make me uncomfortable to keep looking at you,” said the non-descript 40-ish man at the bar.
Interpreted by me this meant you’re sitting between me and the TV screen and I’m going to have to stare at you to see it so we should swap spots.
Interpreted by my drinking companion this meant I don’t like the looks of you.
This is the closest I’ve come to a bar fight in many years. I’m nearly certain that I was correct, and the misunderstanding only further cemented how opposite two people’s brains can function. (And why I’m no longer living with this person.)
Older men hang at Nancy Whisky Pub on the earlier side, younger cleanly-scrubbed couples who seem transplanted from Wisconsin stay later. There was one other woman at the bar, the only female over 40 (though barely) with short hair and wearing a tank top and checkered glasses, looking like an ‘80s art student, and a little Ghostbusters Annie Potts (the film’s fire station is only two blocks away–perhaps this was an apparition?) except that she wasn’t old enough to have kept the look for decades and was too old to be successfully ironic.
This is why I resist the floral baby doll dresses, chokers, Docs and mini-backpacks the kids are all nostalgic for (plus, these ’90s trappings [Doc Martens aren’t ’90s but I’ve given up on accuracy] are ugly). No one over 30 can pull off recycled trends without causing concern that you’ve been wearing them all along.
Age appropriate? It goes without saying that dives are by default age appropriate, even in dives in Tribeca.