Harvard Square was a favorite hangout. There was no place in the world like it. I’m not talking about the sanitized version of Harvard Square that’s there now. No sir. Harvard University owns Harvard Square now, and it shows. I’m talking about the Harvard Square that had a great restaurant called Grendel’s Den. The place was just great. It had a lot of Middle Eastern specialties on the menu and the prices were great. It had the Coop. And it had a club called Jonathan Swift’s. It was the only place of its kind, and it’s now long gone. Harvard Square is but a mere shadow of what it used to be. It had its own unique personality and character. People would talk about Linda Ronstadt getting her start at Passim (a coffee house) and going over to Elsie’s to get a great roast beef sandwich. Many of those places are gone now, but they’ve left behind some great memories.

Jonathan Swift’s was to the left of The Garage (which is on the corner of JFK and Mt. Auburn). You’d go in the door and down some stairs. The bar was named for an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (for both the Whigs and Tories), poet and cleric. He is remembered for works such as Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal.

Now, back to the place. There was nowhere else like it anywhere. It wasn’t just a bar. It had a stage and offered live music. Nothing special about that, but the atmosphere was great. Some of the bands that played there were Stormin’ Norman and Suzie, Chuck MacDermott & Wheatstraw, and John Lincoln Wright & The Sourmash Boys.

My friends and I saw John Lincoln Wright there more than once. This time it was the dead of winter — don’t ask me to remember the year. They were already on stage when we got there, so it was pretty dark, but I could have sworn that the woman across the room near the piano was Bonnie Raitt. Of course, I immediately got distracted and forgot that I thought I saw her.

Well, I remembered it a while later when they brought Bonnie Raitt up on stage to sing with them! It was just awesome. She did maybe two or three numbers with them and went back to sit in the audience. I can’t remember exactly what she sang, but it was around the time of the Sweet Forgiveness album, I think. It was great to see her in that kind of venue, smaller and more intimate. We’d all become accustomed to seeing her at what used to be The Music Hall (now the Wang Center). And, yes, she wailed on that slide guitar.

Anyway, that was a great time. And now, it’s time to go celebrate. The Red Sox have slugged their way into first place in the AL East. By the way, where the F#@* is Manny these days?

This is quite the flashback. One of my very good friends says this is something that could only happen to me. I’m not sure about that, but given my track record there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen to me. And it just so happens that this all started in a gay bar.

My friends and I spent a considerable amount of time in the bars at the time this took place, and I’m talking about the 70s to 80s time frame here. We spent a lot of time in Boston at Buddies, Somewhere, Darts and Our House (which was actually in Allston, I believe). Now it’s damned near impossible to find a gay bar, and that is very sad. Some places are ‘gay’ one night of the week. The only problem is most gay people are pretty much ‘gay’ full time.

Anyway, it just so happens that there was a pretty healthy bar scene in the suburbs as well. One place that served gay clientele (and still does to this day) is the Randolph Country Club. Been in business for years. We had been frequenting Boston bars week after week, then someone told us about this place called DiRocco’s in Tyngsboro. (I can find almost nothing on this place no matter where I look. However, I offer proof that it existed!) We tried it and liked it and went more than once, I believe. I remember the turn of events vividly on one particular trip there.

This woman asked me to dance. Well, we ended up hanging out together most of the night. She came over and sat at the table with me and my friends, the whole nine yards.  The whole evening it really drove me crazy that she looked vaguely familiar to me. At the time, I was working for a Fortune 500 high tech company and had been there for quite some time, but her face didn’t really ring that bell. The long and short of it is that she ended up coming back to my place in Melrose. Without going into the details, let’s just say it was a long, active and eventful evening. We really didn’t talk about much of anything pertaining to work or our personal lives. Until morning, and that is precisely when the bell rang on her familiar face.

Oh, yes. Turns out my new friend, we’ll call her Ilene, just so happened to be married to a guy that I interacted with pretty regularly in my job.  Yep. Same last name. And, guess what, totally unbeknownst to me, she also worked there.  Quaint. No? I can’t exactly remember what my reaction must have been that next morning as I was getting ready to go to work, but I know Ilene spent a considerable amount of time telling me not to worry because she had an “open relationship” with her husband. He wouldn’t care. Hell, she and I could even continue to carry on without fear! Fucking wonderful! Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. (Although, to tell you the truth, I had one hell of a time that night.)

This singular event in my life had so much potential for ugliness. It really did, considering that the three of us worked in the same building. I was lucky on this one. I told her that there was no way there would be a repeat of the prior evening because my Catholic guilt would get the better of me. (That was a crock of shit. I just didn’t want to deal with being in the same building with the two of them.) I was lucky that Ilene accepted that decision. And, even if her other half knew about the incident, he never let on. Bullet dodged. I would survive to make other really dumb mistakes. Stay tuned.

Writer’s note: The photo in this post is borrowed and depicts gay bar life in The Castro. It is used here strictly for effect. Some of what’s out there is really cheesy.