Tradewinds

With a typical closing time of 10:00 pm, downtown Saint Augustine is not known for its nightlife. But a few months ago, in an effort to forget about our mundane lives for one night, some fellow work-from-home-women, mothers and I ventured out for a ladies night we will not soon forget. Initially we had planned to visit an elegant Bistro for its Ladies Night specials, however, for some fateful reason, it's bar area was closed that evening for repairs. We drove through the narrow, one-way streets, desparately seeking a new nightspot (and a parking spot for that matter.) Everything would be closing soon, except for a stagnant "Scarlett O'Hara's" and a college-age sports bar. We finally found a parking spot along the main drag, and decided to search on foot. As we rounded the corner on King Street, we heard it, loud music and the sound of a good time. The doors were open and people were packing into the place. The row of bikes out front should have been our first clue, but we were so determined in our quest for bequilement, we sauntered right passed them through the open door to the Tradewinds Lounge.

Admittedly, it looked less like a tropical isle in the South Seas, and more like the opening sequence of a Law & Order episode, as we stopped just passed the entrance huddled together like a group of rabbits surrounded by a pack of wolves. If there was any other time I heard more loudly (and more appropriately)the proverbial screech of the jukebox record player coming to a stop, I do not remember it. Here we were, five, somewhat conservatively dressed, suburban housewives emerging from the dissapating cigarette smoke like a pod of just-landed aliens through the early morning fog in a Kansas cornfield. We stood there a minute (okay, maybe five minutes) in awkward silence, as we stared at each other, then at the bearded, tatooed, and black-leather-clad crowd, then back at each other again. Until, finally, the boldest one of us started to make her way toward the bar, as we followed in a single-file line after her. She ordered that night's special, pre-made "punch." While the rest of us ordered our vodka tonics and bottled beers. I ordered a Michelob Ultra, of course, since I planned on getting in an eight-mile run before bed that night and didn't want to fill-up on too many carbs! (I'm kidding, of course, I usually only run about three miles in the dead of night.)

We staked-out our spot near the "dance floor," since it provided a great vantage point for people-watching. Amid the deafening live music and the one-eyed, one-legged pirate playing the harmonica in my ear, I was actually beginning to loosen up and enjoy myself. While I couldn't hear a damn thing my friends were saying, I continued to smile and nod my head in agreement, and occassionally throwing in a chuckle and a scrunch of my nose for good measure. Halfway into the night we had "adopted" Peg-Leg, the nickname we affectionately gave our harmonica-playing friend, into our little group. Two of my friends got the itch to hit the dancefloor with two members of the motorcycle gang sitting at a table nearby. The lead singer of the band gave a little speech before his next song. I couldn't tell you what he was talking about, but the room full of bikers rose to their feet, as the band uttered the first few notes of that old dance club favorite...God Bless the USA.

Watching the scene unfold before me, I was puzzled, speechless, and a bit dizzy from inhaling all that smoke. Those who had taken to the dance floor for that number were hell-bent on finding a dance beat in that song. All of a sudden I noticed a rather large biker chick boring a hole through me with her eyes. She resembled what I envisioned a model for the plus-sized S&M collection at your local smut shop would look like. She smirked as she grabbed her dance partner's buttocks and uttered in my direction, "you wish all this was yours!" Shaking my head back into reality, I realized I apparently had been momentarily hypnotized by the oscillating gold-plated chain dangling from her belly-button and disappearing up under her very unflattering mid-driff halter top (where only her rough-rider companion had the balls to venture, I'm guessing.) God only knows how long I'd been ogling at the pair dirty dancing to Lee Greenwood.

After a few hours, and a few more Ultras, I discovered that Tradewinds was really a melting pot of a dive. There were not only bikers, but retirees in their floral-print, Tommy Bahama duds, tourists wearing their newly purchased "Tradewinds Lounge, The Oldest Bar in the Oldest City" colored t-shirts, the college crowd downing their cheap pitchers of Bud Light, the traveling businessmen, and us, the suburban wives club. Actually, the only demographics noticeably missing were the old ladies from the Red Hat Society and children.

We capped off our trip to the twilight-zone with a stop at the Wendy's drive-thru and a harrowing 15-mile ride home on a dark two-lane highway, back to the safety of our sheltered little community. Ah, to be home again. Aaaargghhh!