Thank God this hasn't happened since!

Labor Day 9-3-2001: The Ark jumps the shark

In the nineteen sixties, the Ark Lounge, a small watering hole located in an historically challenged area of Charleston, SC, defined the word "dive" as it pertains to bars. From the tattered linoleum bar top that matched the well worn linoleum floor, to the rickety wooden bar stools with green vinyl seats highlighted by dingy white padding peaking out of numerous rips, to the floor which slanted to the front southeast corner of the little frame building, the same corner that was occupied by the jukebox, this place screamed DIVE. Every guy who stumbled into and tilted the jukebox blamed the floor, thus absolving himself of any responsibility to reimburse the generous soul who had ponied up a quarter to provide music for all. The air was permeated by a funky smell that can only be achieved by marinating the essence of stale spilled beer with the stench of cigarette smoke for a minimum of ten years, a familiar odor instantly identified by wives, girlfriends and mothers. Clientele included salesmen, craftsmen, dockworkers, politicians, a few lawyers, a doctor or two and damn near every cadet who ever attended The Citadel. Needless to say I loved the sixties version of the Ark.

Today I went to the Ark for the annual Labor Day party.

Sadly, the Ark as I knew it had “jumped the shark”. The phrase “jumped the shark” describes the moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it can now only decline in quality and popularity. The origin of the phrase comes from a Happy Days episode in which a thirty something Henry Winkler, dressed in jeans and leather jacket as the perpetually cool Fonzi, jumps a shark while water skiing. Game, set, match. Richie, Potsy and Ralph Malph had reached the point of no return.

I sipped my first draft in the Ark in 1962 and for the first time since then I knew fewer than half of the patrons. Maybe if I had stopped in a little more often over the past couple of years I would have seen it coming. I didn’t notice as many strangers at the New Years Day party but that was a much larger crowd. Maybe it was hearing several Yankee and Midwest accents that contrasted sharply with the gullah/geechee patois that is native to the old Ark. Maybe it was the uneasiness I felt when two women from off approached me more than once offering to sell me a two dollar raffle ticket on a twenty dollar prize. What the hell was that all about? Surely this couldn’t be the same Ark where we played shuffleboard and pool for short beers. Where we rolled dice for the privilege of playing the jukebox. Where Herman Mappus and Zeke Pye got loaded in the afternoon and played against one another in the Bishop England/ Charleston High basketball game that night. Where a guy named Sparky and his nephew came to a New Years party and got in a helluva fight … with one another. Where Rudy fell off of his stool every Friday and where hundreds, maybe thousands of Citadel cadets drank their first beer. In retrospect there were many events that led up to this moment. Maybe it was when women were first allowed in as something other than bachelor party entertainment.

Prior to women obtaining keys the Ark had been a great place to get away from the wife or girlfriend (or both for some members). A safe house of sorts. It was a place where you could go after being banished from your home by a fed up wife. It was the first stop for you and your Puerto Rican suitcase (Scrib’s (the owner) definition of a hastily packed Piggly Wiggly bag). It was a place where you could use the words that drinking men use without looking around to make sure you didn’t offend someone. Maybe it was when Scrib stopped bartending. To this day it seems unnatural for him to be on the stool side of the bar. Maybe it was when I quit drinking. I had my last adult beverage in the Ark. I left there severely over served on an August afternoon in 1989. I fell asleep at the wheel forty miles later on highway seventeen and proceeded to park my Saab in a ditch near the ACE Basin. No injuries and minor damage to the car. I thanked the Lord for watching over me once again and swore off booze. To my surprise I have yet to take another drink. Maybe it was the passage of almost forty years. Things do change in that period of time, even in Charleston. It was a sad day for me but I’ll probably be back. Maybe it was just one of those days when many of the old regulars had other plans. Maybe it wasn’t. Hell, maybe I’ve jumped the shark.