After years of sobriety, columnist returns to the bars

I don't think he was referring to "sports bars" of 25 years ago, just bars. His opening line, I believe, said: "Bars still smell the same." Then a few grafs later, he wrote: "But underneath, it's still a bar."

 

I think Miroba is correct.

 

Bars are places you go to get sloshed or try to pick up someone

The games just get in the way.

 

Satellite TV was around in '82 with a large dish.

 

Spnited, seriously: I know people who know longer drink who are able to be in places with alcohol and not drink. It's hard to go into a restaurant, for example, without being around liquor.

I also know something about drinking myself, sometimes a lot more than I wish I did.

Returning to the bar is not recommended, repeated behavior for a recovering alcoholic. But I have to agree with Sheos: As a one-off, this wasn't automatically a big risk for a guy who's been sober for 25 years. And I'm sure he had it in his mind whether he'd be able to handle it or not.

It's a disease; it's not bubonic plague.

 

Is the author the same Ken Berger who used to be the AP guy in Cleveland in the mid-to-late 1990s? I was just wondering, because I met Ken a couple of times, and he seemed like a nice enough guy.

 

Different guy.

 

I don't think it's the same Ken Berger as the one in Cleveland, but I could be wrong. I know he used to work for The State and, at one point, was the Washington, D.C., bureau writer for either The State or the P&C.

He's written about his battle with alcoholism in the past. I grew up in Charleston, so I've read his stuff on this in the past. My all-time favorite column is the one he wrote about what it's like to be a sportswriter. It hangs on my wall in every office/cubicle I've ever had.

"Sports are what we cover. Writing is what we do." That was my favorite line. Simple, but accurate.

The one thing about Berger -- and I'd never knock him -- is he doesn't really write a column that offers opinions. He's more of flowery-type writer. Nothing wrong with that, but a lot of people prefer their columnists to be strictly opinionated. I think that's a big reason why I've shaped my view on columnists in a more well-rounded fashion (I like columns that are features, funny, etc...). But you're right, he's a legend around these parts.

 

P.S. And as somebody who idolized the guy when I was a high school kid who dreamed of being a sportswriter, you couldn't ask to meet a nicer guy.

 

Word.

We had one of those when I was a kid. Only bad thing was, you had to go out back and manually aim the dish to get a certain feed. But we got a shitload of channels. Multiple times better than cable (at the time, and probably now, too). I got to love MuchMusic and got to marvel at how St. John's was a half-hour off.

I see a big dish every now and again, still. Does anyone still own one, or are all the channels scrambled nowadays?

 

My favorite part: "pretending to do play-by-play when you really don't know what you're talking about."

... And that goes double for parents at high school basketball games.

 

I've exchanged small talk with him a couple times before college football games and just from that I'd say he's a pretty good guy. When I pass through those parts, always made sure I picked up a copy of the P&C.