Down the Hatch: Pint polishing

I put my hand in a small drip of sticky vinegar sauce on the dark wood table and now I can’t stop smelling my palm. I’m not proud of it, but it’s early and I’m the only person around. Perched on “the platform,” an elevated area near White Lion’s bar, I pretend to be interested in the Whitbread posters to my left and right.

The White Lion, housed in a Tudor-style building in south Tulsa, has been in business since 1999. Betty Southard, who moved here from Liverpool in 1957, owns the place with her son, John. “This was his idea,” she says. “He told me and I said he was mad.” Her nephew, Peter Shevlin, a retired aircraft engineer also from Liverpool, is its manager. 

The last time I was here the room was packed, warm with body heat and beer breath. There were five of us on the platform then. I order the same drink I had last time: a Brown Bitter—half Smithwick’s Ale and half Newcastle, slightly sweet and tasting of toasted bread.

My pint glass says “Only for the Bold” and, heartened by these crimson walls and the ale, I decide that is what I am. Bold. I can write this new column here. No need to self-edit now. A sober individual can do that tomorrow. 

I strike up a conversation with Peter, or he strikes one up with me. He asks what I’m doing. “Writing,” I say. He pauses and looks me up and down. “Weirdo,” he says, and we both laugh. 

A fleeced and flannelled couple comes in, definitely new to the place—all wide-eyes and giggles, peering with admiration around the room at all the shit on the walls: horse brasses, old photographs, framed tea towels. “It’s kind of amazing,” one of the couple says. 

Peter asks what I do for a living and I answer. 

“Do you like it?” he asks. “I do. It’s nice to work doing what I enjoy.” He agrees and gestures around. “This is about enjoying people. Having a giggle, having a laugh,” he says. Then I remember he called me a weirdo. “You don’t have to think too much,” he says. I’ll cheers my Brown Bitter to that.

In “Down the Hatch,” assistant editor Liz Blood offers a look inside Tulsa’s many bars, pubs, saloons and gin joints. Send suggestions for future columns to liz@langdonpublishing.com or @lizblood on Twitter.