It's never been about slumming. Or kitsch. Or camp. No, Barbara Middlebrook drinks at the Ace-Hi Tavern — a dive bar right down to its shag carpet and cash-only policy — for the same reason that she looks forward to walks down Main Street during breaks from her job at the Colorado School of Mines: because neither the Ace nor Golden, where a bar has stood at 1216 Washington Avenue for the past 128 years (sixty of them as the Ace), ignores the town's down-and-out denizens. They don't pretend that the men and women asleep on park benches or slumped over in a corner booth aren't there. For Middlebrook, this stands in direct contrast to Boulder, where she lived for many years — and which wants so badly to maintain a utopian guise, to the point of denying problems with drugs, the homeless and drunks. Despite attempts at one time or another to be historic and touristy like Aspen or competitive and contemporary like Boulder, Golden today remains a small town within commuting distance of Denver — a college town with twenty-somethings binge-drinking on loan money, an industry town with third-shift workers in dire need of a 7 a.m. cocktail before they go to sleep. For better or worse, Golden is these people, and the Ace serves them without judgment or reservation. Which is why Barbara keeps coming here.
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And anyway, she continues, while we wait for our second $1 draughts, hanging out at bars like the Ace simply for the sake of novelty or irony would be inauthentic. True — but how does anyone determine the authenticity of anyone else? Do the young or restlessly nostalgic not belong in a place where the drinks are still cheap, the bartender calls everyone "sweetie" and the jukebox plays Hank Williams and the Jackson 5 like they were still in style? To say nothing of frozen pizzas ready in ten minutes or the random camaraderie found only in the type of bar that caters to townies and drifters.
Do I not belong here, I ask, suddenly and uncharacteristically self-conscious, simply because at 24 I haven't been dealt enough of life's bullshit and sorrow, haven't cut my teeth working blue-collar jobs or sincerely struggling to make ends meet? Am I not authentic enough? As far as I'm concerned, I've fit right-fucking-in at the Ace and countless other dives across the country since well before the law allowed me to drink — back when I was a nineteen-year-old touring musician playing rock songs for no one but a few regulars bellied up to dark, dirty bars in Buffalo and Little Rock and El Paso, where bartenders would swap drink tickets for beers for road stories for cigarettes, and the regulars would clap with sincerity even when they didn't like our songs. They accepted me then because I was without pretense — simply tired, lonely, thirsty. Should it be any different now?
Barbara and I play philosophical table tennis for another two beers. It must be about intention — if your reasons for being in a bar like the Ace are good, are honest, that means you belong, right? Maybe, Barbara allows, but no one can effectively evaluate the intentions of others, since perception of self is what determines actions, and that self-perception is necessarily biased and flawed: The way I view myself, after all, is drastically different from the way others view me. I can't deny this. A more socially responsible way to behave, she offers, would factor in the perceptions of others. This seems fair; if I was bothering the bartender or rubbing regulars the wrong way, I'd take a hint and be on my way. But I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't draw attention to myself or make others resent my presence. And neither would Barbara. Because bars are backdrops both for human connection and contemplative solitude — places to trade a few bucks for a cold drink and a few minutes away. And because we belong here. At the Ace-Hi Tavern.
Everyone does.
