The Garden of Beerden

The bathroom looked like a concentration camp gas chamber. I should have seen that coming since I was eating Kielbasa and fries and drinking pints of Spaten beer at the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens [It's about time I hung out in my borough]. No offense to the German delegation. Maybe it wasn't reminiscent of a death box, but, still, the bathroom was strange. It was a separate building made of brick with long, length-wise windows that allowed guests to peer in and witness the lines forming to use the facilities, but the the windows were the kind that couldn't open, which created an eerie police investigation room feel. In fact, I was so disturbed I held in any urge and waited until I returned home to use the bathroom.

On a warm, breezy, end of summer August day, this is the place to be(er). Outside, in a half-block long, stone enclosure that looks and feels like a German beer hall even though if you look close enough you realize the walls are not the outer perimeter of a long-gone castle, but simply gray stone walls corralling beer drinkers and sudsy revelers, keeping them hidden from the possibly under-age park goers nearby and the definitely under-age schoolchildren directly next door.

The place was packed. There could have been 1000 people there. It's "How many jelly beans are in this jar?" personified. If I asked my friend Chris, who was with me, to guess, he'd set the over/under in less than 10 seconds and have at least $10 ready to bet either way. I didn't mention it, so instead we each had a cup of beer in our hands, our pitcher sitting on an upright barrel, shared with two other people, while we stared at the throng of people sitting on long benches at long tables and countless others standing around doing what we were doing, but with more friends to do it with: staring, talking to each other, drinking, but mostly surveying.

People-watching is great. No wonder Reality TV is as popular as it is, regardless of whether it's, in fact, real. It's riveting. Looking at people, sizing them up, summing them up in your mind, knowing them as best as you can when you don't know them at all. She's annoying, he's full of himself, she thinks she's really good looking, but she's not, so she's delusional, he's not funny, I can tell by his t-shirt, therefore, I don't like him because he thinks he's funny, etc. At a place like the Beer Garden, everyone is round up in one central location so you have plenty of opportunities to speculate and discuss. It's not all static either, there's a steady stream of stragglers, new fish entering the fray, those swimming towards the bathrooms, others finning it to the food stand for multiple variety of sausage, fries, chicken, anything to soak up all of the beer pouring out of taps relentlessly.

When you go to a beer garden, you know the score: Drink beer. But you have to drink responsibly. Signs when you walk in prohibit drinking games. Wearing "bling" is also prohibited. One guy passed me wearing a long gold chain with a cross. I guess that wasn't "blingy" enough. Must be because of the religious factor.

It's a great place to drink beer when the weather is right. Trees creep over the stone walls like beer head foaming over the top of the glass. The sky is endless above you. Pennants hang from the walls. All around are merrymakers; you keep expecting to turn your head to see people dressed in doublets and frocks, something out of Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Everyone wears normal clothes instead, full of clever, sardonic-sloganed t-shirts. The ground is concrete and gravel, with grass patches and a low wooden deck/stage near the middle, but still off towards the end. That's it. Sure, there's a restaurant and bar inside, but no one came for that, they came for the garden, the beer hall, the open air, the trees, the breeze, the sound of people, the baskets of fries, the kielbasa, the bratwurst, the burgers, the girls in skirts, the guys in polo shirts, the sunglasses, the solidarity, the one way to bring your friends together for a few hours on a weekend so you can all catch up, but without killing your evening, the bathroom troughs, the elementary school next door, they came to give thanks, to remember, to reflect. To drink beer. In t-shirts. Outside. It must have been like this for Adam and Eve, too.

I sure hope so.

Jared