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| - The first time I ended up at Smedley's, I was on a "hang out" (as in, not a date, but we're going to sleep together) with a tall lanky 24 yr old. I had moved to Kamm's corner about a year before, but being a staunch Ohio City bar fly (read: hipster snob), I hadn't bothered to walk the three blocks to any of the bars actually by my house. They seemed too full of pastel polo shirts and women who thought they ought to have babies by 24, before they would consider going to school. This guy had a bunch of his younger friends there, and I felt my 31 years really keenly, also I was having Common Grounds flashbacks to high school, and acting on those feelings, we made out a lot by the back door.
I hadn't been back for a while, because I didn't want to run into that guy, but then I found myself on another "hang out" with a guy on a Sunday afternoon. This guy was actually in my age group, thank god, and we had decided to go on a tour of dive bars. We started at the Rowley Inn, which had been cheap and fun, but then got sort of uncomfortable when a lot of the more exuberant regulars showed up, so I suggested Smedley's next because it was closer to where we lived, and the memory I had of it was just dirty enough to qualify.
This time we walked in through the front door, and it was immediately exactly what we wanted. The bar was clean and warm and the staff was nice. There was a group of either off duty firemen or policemen playing pool in the back, and a guy spinning old 60s and 70s rock in the front. It seemed like the place where any of the patrons would stand up to and kick out troublemakers. The clientele oozed old school attitude - family, country, beer. We talked about music a lot, I bounced around on my stool to the songs, we ogled the military and police badges on the wall. The music was just loud enough to force us to lean in when talking, but not so loud you couldn't hear what the other person was trying to tell you about late 90's indie rock. If the Rowley is the kind of dive bar where someone might be scared of the hipsters ruining it, then Smedley's is the kind of bar which nothing can ever ruin because it is exactly the same as it's been for 20 years and will continue to be that way no matter how many of those damn kids show up. Seeing as my date and I were just old enough to not be those kids anymore, it was perfect. Later, instead of making out in a car, we went and listened to vinyl while drinking wine in his living room. This is called growing up.
If you've ever wanted to have a fireman buy you a drink, this is the place to go. Or a police man. I imagine one of those two groups is going to pissed off I assumed the other group hangs out at Their Bar.
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