While I believe the rural churches of America represent the very best of the true character and virtue of our nation, my experience in the bars has been one of finding a kind of honesty found nowhere else. Looking at the present crop of contenders for the Presidency confirms my long held opinion politicians and preachers need to spend time in the bars. And I don’t mean the upscale clubs as in “Cocktails for Two,” but the ones frequented by the Great Unwashed where three-piece suits and evening gowns are not proper attire.

As Sam Clemens mentioned of the upper classes’ deplorable lack of knowledge of poker making him “ashamed of his species,” so it is with the deplorable lack of knowledge on the part of politicians and preachers about the bars frequented by the common folks. Say what anyone will, I have found the folks in bars to be among the most honest of people, oftentimes more so than those I have known in the churches. Unfortunately, hypocrisy is more often associated with the churches than with the bars. For example, when it comes to men chasing women and vice versa the timeline changes dramatically. In the society of the churches it may take months before the first date. In the bars you quickly cut to the chase much like the scene in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

Life here in the Kern River Valley is not always serene. There was a shooting at Slugger’s Saloon a few nights ago, but the shooter’s target though hit in the chest was still alive last I heard, and a few of the other patrons held the malefactor for the police. Even without knowing the details of what was involved, anyone with my experience in various cuttin’ ‘n’ shootin’ joints surmises such disagreements generally come about because of disputes over a woman. From my own experience I have found women to be the one thing above others that men will fight over. Forget the wise counsel to avoid the subjects of politics, religion, or the Civil War in the bars; it is the fair sex that most often draws men into confrontation.

Now I have known Slugger for many years, I recall when she first opened her place and we became very good friends. And like most of the pubs here in the valley, she tried to run a nice place where people could socialize without fear of getting cut or shot. But there is just something about the ambience of booze and men chasing women that sometimes disrupts otherwise civilized behavior; though as a musician and singer in time past I have experienced the best of what some bars have to offer in the way of entertainment, I have met some of the very best of people including other musicians in the various bars I have frequented.

However, there are incidents like the time I crossed a motorcycle gang not knowing the young woman I expressed an interest in “belonged” to that group. She was interested in me as well, but when we stepped outside there was that gang behaving in a most threatening manner. It was quite a moment as she was torn between me and her gang. But it turned out there was a matter of dealing drugs involved, and it was this that determined her choice to leave with the gang. They in fact really “owned” her ever as much as any slave master.

Life in the bars, the curse of beauty some women suffer, the tragedies of alcoholism and drugs, the loneliness that drives some people to do things they would never consider doing otherwise, these are some of the things that caused me to write a book on the subject. Here is an excerpt from one chapter:

It isn’t, of course, all romanticism in the bars. A very beautiful woman I know well is getting quite drunk. She started early, and by the time the band began playing that evening she was well intoxicated. As I held her close to me while we danced, I told her once more how beautiful she was. She laid her head on my shoulder and replied, “But I’m drunk, Sam.”

I replied, “Drunk or sober, you’re still beautiful.”

And she is. But she doesn’t realize, herself, how very beautiful she is. Why? Her life has been, like so many other beautiful women I know, a history of men who have used and abused her. The curse of beauty in our society, having to cope with life decisions at too early an age, the complete victim of a culture that places a premium on youth and beauty that values women and girls in a totally sexual way, this beautiful woman pays the price of all of this degradation of morality and chastity. Her life, therefore, is a contradiction of her real beauty, and she honestly doesn’t see herself as truly beautiful.

It’s another time and another place. Since I have never been to this lounge in Oildale before, friends are making me acquainted with some of the patrons. One, a very strikingly beautiful woman wants to dance. It is obvious, however, that she is quite drunk. We make it through one dance and I rejoin my friends. When the band starts the next number, a real degenerate has moved on her and they both, drunkenly, try to dance. It becomes too much for me to watch anymore and I take my leave, making the appropriate farewells to my friends.

This particular woman, I have learned, has three children. She will get home somehow and her children will, as so many others I know in similar circumstances where drugs and alcohol play a tragic role, worry about mommy and the men that filter in and out of their lives; some of these children pay a very tragic price for mommy’s having “fun.”

I don’t believe it can be legitimately denied women need, desperately, to be the softness and gentleness, the virtuousness men need to inspire romance. But we live in a violent world and society that is the antithesis of such things, and women are made to be hard and tough in areas where women were never intended to be so.

While it isn’t very romantic, there is another common part of the problem of which the following story is all too typical as well. I was sitting in the living room of a beautiful young woman. She has two, small children and no husband. The ubiquitous tube as baby sitter was not working properly; a real cause of concern when you are trapped in a low-rent apartment complex.

A vicious chain of circumstances has robbed her of transportation; a common problem with the poor. When California passed the law requiring insurance for motorists she had been cited for not having such. Nor, like most people in her circumstances, could she afford it.

Her failure to provide proof of insurance resulted in the suspension of her license. She later got pulled over and the outstanding citation resulted in her car being impounded. It would cost her over $800 to get it back, an impossible sum of money. And the old junker isn’t worth it. As a result, like so many others she loses her car and cannot get her license renewed. With the care of the children, she has to prevail on others to go anywhere like shopping at the grocery store. This makes her especially vulnerable to predatory men who will take advantage of women and their welfare checks.

This lovely girl has only one outlet for entertainment, for some escape from the hopelessness of her situation; the local bar across the street. Here she knows and meets others in similar circumstances. If she can get a neighbor friend to watch her children for a while, she can play pool and visit. For a quarter, she can attempt to get a stuffed toy from the toy machine. And she has become adept at doing so. This enables her to give the children something when she returns. While very attractive there is no vanity in her, and she freely admits she engages in prostitution to make ends meet. Intelligent, she is woefully undereducated and sees no hope of a future for her and her children.

The leadership of our nation, the leaders in churches should spend some time in the bars frequented by people like this young woman. Until they have observed and talked to such people, until they have listened to the music and danced in such places, until they have heard the tragic stories first hand, they will never understand the real needs of the people they are elected and sworn to serve.