While sitting at my local-local pub recently, I was thinking about some of the old friends that I hadn't seen in awhile.
    I asked the bartender about them by name, and gave a description of the one whose name escaped me for a minute. I was taken aback when I got the response: "Barred for life."

There is no appeal from this sentence, and as drunkard pre-trial motions go, this is a sentence of death. There are a few bars where I live in Portland, Maine that, upon getting tossed off the premises, you might as well quit drinking.

That got me to engaging in my favorite dangerous activity, heavy duty one-handed thinking. While one hand is clenching a PBR in a death grip, I argue out my point with wild gesticulations of the other hand, carefully balancing myself so as not to spill a drop. Arguing on behalf of the accused, I lobby for their safe return to the arms of pre-hangover festivities. The first step, as always, is to determine the extent of the guilt.

"What did that foolish nitwit do this time?"

The bartender was unclear as to the details, only knowing some minor ones. There was a fight involved. That's not unusual here -- our Old Port gets a bit confrontational at closing time. When our new police chief arrived, he expressed shock and said our staggering scene was the "worst he'd ever seen." He came to us from South Central L.A.