Until about the fifth grade, I was a bully. I would punch classmates if they did something that irritated me, like one kid, Wally Clifford, who peed on a ruler and wiped it on my shirt in the boys’ restroom.
I tagged him with a roundhouse right, and I’ll never forget the shocked look on his face, even as he maintained a goofy, frozen smile.
But then one day on the playground I got into it with a heavyset kid named Russell Armstrong, and Russell put me in my place — and kept me there — by sitting on my chest. I realized then that I was not invulnerable, and it dawned on me that I’d better retire from fisticuffs before I took a really good beating.
I lost one more schoolyard fight before I quit altogether and became an inveterate coward.
Later, in all the years I spent in the bars as a bachelor — didn’t get married ’til I was a week shy of 39 — I can’t ever recall being in a bar when a big fight broke out. I saw a couple of guys get kicked out of bars for minor stuff, but I never saw any confrontation that I suspected would lead to somebody returning and trying to take revenge. At the same time, I was always vigilant about what was going on around me and tried to be attuned to any signs of barroom trouble.
Now you know where I’m going with this personal history…I’m pretty sure that even back in my single days, I would have left a bar immediately if I had witnessed a confrontation that resulted in someone threatening to return while getting thrown out.
And while it’s implausible that I would have been in Tequila KC on Central Avenue last Saturday night, if I had been…if I had been, I would have been gone in 10 seconds after seeing a guy throw cups and bottles at a bartender and hearing him threaten to return as he was escorted out.
(Moreover, if I had been in any bar where a guy looking as menacing as Hugo Villanueva-Morales does in his mug shot, I think that would have been enough to send me running for the door.)
I also would have been gone the afternoon or evening of Feb. 22, 2017, after Adam Purinton was kicked out of Austin’s Bar & Grill in Olathe after yelling racial slurs at Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani. Purinton came back with a gun later and killed Kuchibhotla and wounded Madasani and a man who had come to their aid.
I’m not saying I would have left those bars because I was smarter than those who didn’t leave; I just have a finely honed sense of self-preservation. Some might call it paranoia, but whatever it is, it has served me pretty well. So far, anyway.
I seldom go to bars any more. Oddly, though, after the symphony last Friday night, we went to the bar at Grunauer’s restaurant in the Freight House area. We had eaten dinner there with several other people before the performance and had left a car in the lot. We weren’t quite ready to wrap up the night when we got back to Grunauer, so we popped in there for a while.
It was distractingly loud because of blaring, teeth gratingly bad music, but it was safe — a lot safer than it was about 24 hours later across the state line at 10th and Central.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
You matured and saw the bigger picture in several key aspects of life. You and I could each name several acquaintances who never changed and continue to suffer.
Luck is at least as big a factor as maturation.
Love this one, Fitz. As for editing, I would suggest but one. Delete “either smacked or”, because it weakens the story. You’re not “reporting”, you are illustrating your point, so if YOU can’t verify, then choose the more powerful one that accomplishes the goal, and move on. You slugged the guy.
Also loved the double use of “if I HAD been”!! Brilliant writing. Drives it home. Reminds me of Howard Goller’s style, and his signature way of starting a sentence. “So xxxxxxxx was he, that yyyyyyyyyyy.”
Warm memories of our days drinking in the back room of the New Stanley in the 70’s. When Westport was safe. When Kramer never tossed anyone out, and if he did, didn’t matter cuz WE, the STAR reporters plus one devotee learning her craft in PR and making friends with people who loved this town, (me) were all safely in the back room, drinking hard and unwinding. The citizen drinkers were all in the front room, where last call was 12:30, last and final. Whereas you and OJ and Casey and Haskins and Dauner and so many of Casey’s hires and mentees were just arriving at 12:35am, when the Kansas City TIMES had gone to press. So you all were allowed to order drinks till 12:55am, the “last call for the TIMES”.
Indeed.
One final question: what the hell does that headline mean?
— I spent a lot of time in the front room, too, Tracy. That’s where the vast majority of the women were.
— Took your advice on the wording suggestion.
— I didn’t put a headline on this one; I don’t know what the readers saw.
Tracy must have her own special, secret version. I don’t see a headline, either.
Fitz, if you got notice of this column by email, google entitled it “20572”.
Unfortunately, firearms are illegal in bars in Kansas or honest citizens might have been able to send these KCMO ruffians packing.
I eat in that area quite often, Every time I have a Landmark Commission meeting I go down to El Toritos at 13th and Central for supper. This time it was blocked off so I went to Hamburgesa Los Compas at 305 North 7th for supper and I felt as safe as you did over by Grunauers.
Drive through the Argentine or the area of downtown around city hall an to the south. Hispanics have cleaned those areas up. Those that own their own homes doll them up with fancy porches and maintain them with flowers and well manicured yards. And, if you drive around during the evening you’ll often see a large group celebrating a birthday or some other family event, peacefully engaging in activities long gone to most highly mobile Eurocentric Americans.
Thanks to friends in that community I am often invited to these events and even though I don’t speak a word of Spanish outside of “Grande, por favor” I have never felt uncomfortable being there, going there, or coming home.
As we’ve seen lately, that shooting could have happened anywhere, but it has absolutely zero to do with the safety of the Central Avenue neighborhood. I will go there anytime you want and walk down the street with you and I will not fear any violence.
Gayle — Good to know. I couldn’t think of an appropriate headline, so I just let it go.