Willew: More soup than tap beer, a $4 burger, a Citra, Mentos, breakfast (on weekends) and lots of parking

Willew: The doctor and barber are out

The hairy guy's report:

Old buildings can find new lives. A couple old downtown office buildings now have slick, upscale apartments. Earlier, the old city hall became a restaurant called (imaginatively) Old City Hall.

And a short drive out Midland Road at Two Mile, in a nondescript building -- Mrs. Hairy Guy says it looks like an insurance office -- there's the Willew Lounge, in what the bar's website says is a former doctor's office and barbershop.

An afternoon on the wagon at the Willew, with tears

Doc’s report:

Global warming’s promise of an early spring lured Harry, the G-Man and your humble narrator out of winter hibernation, and we trundled into the Willew Lounge on the day before Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras Eve, if you will, or, I suppose, Lundi Gras (Fat Monday).

The way Harry and the G-Man were putting away the beers and burgers, we might as well go whole hog and have Jeudi Gras, Vendredi Gras, and Samedi Gras. (Fat Thursday, Fat Friday and Fat Saturday).

The G-Man asked if I was still “on the wagon” (Yes: 3+ years), and wondered about the etymology of the phrase. According to the online Phrase Finder, the probable etymology is the early American 20th Century water wagon, where people could quench their thirst with water, rather than alcohol.