BOB: RANDOM THOUGHTS AND RAMBLINGS FROM BANFF, CANADA
Today is August 27, 2008. Last night was spent at St. James’s Gate (not to be confused with the Pearly Gates of St. Peter) an Irish pub at 207 Wolf street in downtown Banff (pronounced Banffff) that I just happened upon while starving. The first thing that caught my attention was the 30-40 beer taps. Bartender and good guy Mark gave me adequate samples of his best ales and I found a winner, a nice full bodied ale not unlike the barmaid who brought me the best Caesar salad to cross my palate in quite a spell, along with a great Rueben sandwich and an even better smile and soft voice, the softness of which was only surpassed by her luscious, pale pink lips. She was also well coifed. Getting into my 2nd beer I actually noticed that ALL the barmaids (that’s Canadian for every girl working in a pub) would easily pass as lovely Irish lasses. I made it a point to not make any points by talking and joking with as many of these ladies (not laddies) as possible and found them all to have delightful, gregarious personalities, and, to my delight, every one of them laughed at my jokes and smiled sweetly as I wended my way through the barstools and out into the wintry night. A wry smile became me as I realized that the Irish pint-OK pints- I had consumed were actually measured in Canadian metric, which is a wee bit larger than our pint. So, after all these years of cursing the metric system introduced to us (USA) as a pimp on our automobile industry and those of us who owned real tools and SAE knowledge, a beer – OK- beers made me less angry toward metric, and the world in general. So I shall make every attempt to return to see the pint pusher, Mark, and all the pleasant folk at my now favorite Irish Pub! BG
