What's Going On: 40-year-old diary rekindles memories of a free beer

 It was in early February, 1993. 

I was attending a college yearbook convention in downtown Chicago and we had a free evening to explore the city.

Considering it was the middle of the week in the middle of a typical Chicago winter, complete with winds and snow, the city was pretty much dead. But as an energetic, 21-year-old, I was not about to be confined to my hotel room, even if the world around me was in a coma, or at the very least, in a deep sleep. 

So accompanied by a staff photographer, out to the mean streets of Chicago we went. 

Without a car, no money for a taxi, and the aforementioned winter weather conditions, our trip was going to be a short one. But there were a lot of restaurants, and bars, near the hotel, so we didn’t need to travel long distances to find something to entertain us.

What we found was Harry Caray’s bar. 

For you non-baseball fans, Harry Caray was a longtime Chicago Cub announcer, renowned for mispronouncing players’ names and obnoxiously singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning stretch. He was, and remains years after his death, a Chicago legend.

Before that ascension though, he was a St. Louis legend, which was my hometown. Paired with Jack Buck and Joe Garagolia, they formed arguably the greatest broadcasting team in the history of television or radio during the Cardinals’ glory days of the 1960s. 

But Caray and the Cardinals parted ways and he soon migrated north. 

I was well aware of that history, as well as the bigger Cardinal/Cub rivalry that existed for many years before Caray, and many years after he left the broadcasting booth. 

That, however, did not stop me from walking into Harry Caray’s bar proudly wearing my bright red St. Louis Cardinals jacket. 

Besides, it was cold outside and I wasn’t about to leave it in the hotel room out of fear of a little heckling. 

But when we walked into the bar, it was empty, with the exception of a lonely bartender who was picking his teeth with a swizzle stick, watching hockey on a television. 

Noticing the empty bar, my friend and I slowly approached the now-annoyed bartender who had to take time out from his game to actually work. We ordered a couple beers and sat down. 

About that time, I heard a door open over my head. When I walked in, I noticed there was a flight of stairs going up to what looked like a deck and a private room. The door to that room was now open and standing there in all his glory was the man himself: Harry Caray. 

“Who in the world just walked into my bar wearing that jacket?” the legend stated in his patented slurred speech. 

I was ready to be heckled a ribbed a little by a Cub fan. I didn’t think though it would THE Cub fan, one who if I heckled back, would probably toss me out on my hiney into the middle of the cold Chicago night. 

“Uh, hello Mr. Caray. My name’s Greg Orear.”

“Ha, ha, ha. What was that name?” 

Great. Now I’m back in the third grade and I’m going to be subjected to all the familiar taunts that accompany a last name that rhymes with a smelly body part. 

Gregory Orear is the General Manager/Editor of the Red Oak Express and Glenwood Opinion-Tribune. He can be contacted at publisher@redoakexpress.com.