Dolce Vino Wine Bar and Italian Cuisine advertised live music on its webpage. Why do I believe these things? Mike and I have dined at this location several times, enjoying the fine food, relaxing ambiance, and pleasant piano music. It was disappointing that there was no music this Saturday evening. However, the silent piano held out hope that it might be a venue for the three-piece band I play in.
As a backup, I had located Speakeasy, a “friendly neighborhood bar”, hosting the Mojo Rats, promoted as the premier biker band. Off we went to . . . Sun City. Sun City has developed from an enclave for ancient snowbirds (winter visitors) to a hopping community of baby boomers. We located the bar not by the signage but by the large number of SUVs and sedans parked in the lot. There were no bikes of any type to be seen.
Men and women, average age 72, filled the dim room vibrating with the sounds of electric rock music. Locating seats at the far end of a long high-top table, I repositioned a walker folded against the wall to access the stool. The youngest member of the band may have been one of the guitarists, in his mid-60s. It certainly was not the bass guitarist with the badly dyed or cheap wig of long black hair and equally hideous black mustache. The four-member band did a respectable performance of old hits including Black Sabbath and Garth Brooks with a tempo that kept people on the dance floor. Mike led me in a slow dance, managing a prolonged underarm turn to avoid pain from his fractured ribs. This awkward move was witnessed by a woman nearby who acknowledged it with a smile. Not wanting her to think that we were moving slowly because of me, I explained to her that Mike had broken his ribs, leaving out that he had slipped in a hotel shower.
We made friends. A nattily dressed woman many years my senior, crowned with a fashionable fedora, confessed that she no longer dances, her partner struck down by a brain tumor last year. Her group usually visits the American Legion, but a member of her party elected Speakeasy on this night. Another couple took seats across from us, confessing that they, too, were American Legion truants. Evidently the AL hosts dances every Friday and Saturday night. Wow! Who knew that the AL was such a hopping place?
Conversation with our new friends continued and climaxed when we learned that not only are we neighbors separated by only a few houses, but they are friends of Big Bro and his wife. I see a party in the future.
Biker bar with no bikes, dancing boomers, assistive walkers, and AL AWOLs. In Sun City! We are officially old. Does anyone know how I can get a fake veteran’s ID?
