At the Country House, you can save the tab you left

Kawkawlin Country House, where beer tabs live on 

Doc’s report:

In the design of the modern beer can, John Updike saw in 1964 an image of technology gone wrong. “This seems to be an era of gratuitous inventions & negative improvements,” he wrote.

He fondly recalled the beer can of old: “It was beautiful -- as the clothespin, as inevitable as the wine bottle, as dignified & reassuring as the fire hydrant. A tranquil cylinder of delightfully resonant metal, it could be opened in an instant, requiring only the application of a handy gadget freely dispensed by every grocer."

But, as often happens, he went on, the inventions we design to make life better turn on us: “Now we are given, instead, a top beeling with an ugly, shmoo-shaped tab, which, after fiercely resisting the tugging, bleeding fingers of the thirsty man, threatens his lips with a dangerous & hideous hole.”

The remedy? “Turn the beer can upside down and open the bottom. The bottom is still the way the top used to be. This operation gives the beer an unsettling jolt, and the sight of a consistently inverted beer can makes some people edgy. But the latter difficulty could be eliminated if

A beer can tab holder

manufacturers would design cans that looked the same whichever end was up, like playing cards."

Updike would be disappointed to discover that today's beer can has thwarted his remedy, with a curved bottom lacking the rigid lip necessary to secure a church key.

But a recent visit to the Kawkawlin Country House did offer a solution to repurposing the menacing tab.

As our charming and competent hostess Jamie explained, the wooden pegs that dot the bar are meant to collect tabs from beer cans. When Jamie has collected a bag full, she takes them to a scrap metal place and donates the proceeds to the American Legion in Crump, where she serves as chaplain. The money goes to defray the cost of dialysis for members.

We suggested the bar device be called a “tabulator,” and the patrons who collect them “Tab Hunters.” 

Jamie is pure Crump, born and bred, or as she presents herself:

My name is Jamie,
I’m from Crump.
I’ll kick your butt
From stump to stump.

I think it would be great if more bartenders had a similar thumbnail bio in rhyming scheme, e.g.:

My name is Leo,
I’m from Munger.
Got beer for your thirst
And snacks for your hunger.

Or:

Hi, I’m Shelly.
I’m from Reese.
Before you leave
Fill the tip jar, please.

Our visit coincided with the Jan. 6 celebration of Twelfth Night, or the journey of the Magi, and (perhaps coincidentally) Harry, the G-Man and I were in a celebratory mood. But shortly into the afternoon, Jamie could tell we three visitors were hardly wise men. When Harry ordered his

Cardboard race car driver

customary Manhattan, Jamie countered with: "You're asking the girl from Crump for a Manhattan?" and suggested an Alabama Slammer (amaretto, sloe gin, Southern Comfort and orange juice).

Jamie also informed us that picklebacks were popular among the younger patrons, perhaps because of the bar’s proximity to Linwood, home of the Linwood Pickle Festival. 

She regaled us with amusing anecdotes from her experience at the Country House, including the time a patron arrived with a service monkey.

The Kawkawlin Country House is as friendly, warm and inviting a place as one could find to spend the end of the holiday season. I was put in mind of a scene in Shakespeare’s great comedy “Twelfth Night,” where the prudish steward Malvolio upbraids the downstairs staff for celebrating too loudly and too late into the night.

The aptly named reveler Toby Belch replies: “Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

To all readers of our blog, we wish a New Year filled with cakes and ale, and happy bubbles winking at the brim.
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See the hairy guy’s report on the Country House: $1 beers (on Mondays), 50-cent pool, infused cherries and licorice (anytime) in Kawkawlin