To reference “Cheers” when telling the story of a bar seems at once hopelessly clichéd and absolutely necessary, so I’ll get it out of the way first thing — Eamonn’s Loudon House was the place where everybody knew my name. Over the course of the years I spent there, I played many of the roles: Carla, the bitter, sarcastic waitress; Cliff, the pedantic know-it-all; Norm, the beer-loving working stiff; and of course Diane, the would-be intellectual who didn’t quite know how she’d ended up slinging drinks for a living.
It was, therefore, with great sadness that I read the following opening words in an email yesterday from Shannon, “They are demolishing Eamonn’s on Thursday…” Today’s Albany Business Journal confirms the news, and describes a bit about the condo complex that will erase a little piece of my personal history.
It’s been more than ten years since I moved away and maybe two or three since it was gutted by an electrical fire, but there are few stories in my life from between 22 and 27 where Eamonn’s does not play, at the very least, a supporting role. It was where I worked, I played, I made friends, I dated. Many of the stories from those days are known simply by their most notable characteristic — vacuum boy, for example, or Irish Band Night — or a memorable catchphrase, my favorite being “once they taste human flesh, they want human flesh.” (Long story.) And because of all the people I met there, I can still walk into any Irish bar in the greater Albany area and have a reasonably good chance of running in to at least one or two friends.
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