Adopt-a-Spot
Today's MRT frontpage byline story, Adopt-a-Spot was a great article highlighting the good work done by many citizens in helping control litter around town. The story also made me proud to think back to my college days when my scholastic chums and I had a similar program.
My fraternity brothers and I had "adopted" a stretch of Hildebrand Ave. west of Trinity University as our project. More specifically our stretch of road was occupied by only one building...."The Nugget Lounge". As a service to the community and to Roger, the owner, about once a week we would pick up all the litter [i.e. beer cans] that had accumulated out front and throw it out back. Though altruistic in effect, the real reason we cleaned up was that it kept municipal agencies from invetigating what went on inside.
The Nugget Lounge was one of those places that mothers of sons entering college hoped their sons would never find. In fact, places like the Nugget Lounge are one of the first places that sons entering college do find. Thanks to upperclassmen I found it before I found my classes. Roger was a sweetheart of an owner who's thought was that being 21 years old was only a "guideline" in serving beer. Having $1.50 to pay for it trumped age in importance; being 17 years old was close enough. A true free market economist!
Roger let us treat the Nugget like our own and since Trinity students basically financed it's operation I suppose it was. A dive when we "discovered" the Nugget, Roger let us fix it up to our tastes. Art students painted a groovey hippie black light tiger on the wall [Trinity's mascot] and we changed the juke box adding The Doors to the basic Ferlin Husky selection. On Sunday evenings during the Spring and Summer we intiated an elegant hamburger "buffet", served from the grill out back among the trash. Actually we had a symbiotic relationship with Roger and the Nugget. He served anyone cheap beer and we kept the Nugget open....and Roger alive.
I won't say that Roger had a problem with alcohol but when someone drinks beer 15 hours a day every day of the week, well you judge. Quite often about the 13th hour Roger would get quite "sleepy" and turn the bar over to one of the students to run while he went to lie down. I can't recall anyone ever abusing the privelage. During the cold months when Roger would go "lie down", his favorite spot was in the parking lot out front where he would stretch out in his 1957 white Cadillac with the motor running and heat on. We were especially alert during these times and would periodically send someone out to check and make sure Roger wasn't dead. He usually wasn't.
The Nugget was a place of conviviality and good cheer; home to several fraternities and for several years the Trinity football team. But it wasn't for everyone, like the faint of heart. During my junior year I started dating a freshman, "Kate", who is still a good friend [hi Kate if you are reading this in Crested Butte]. After "Kate" and I had been out a few times I thought it only proper to take her to the "in spot", The Nugget. Having only been enjoying the Nugget for a few moments that evening, Kate made the observation I can still hear as if it were yesteday, "This place is disgusting". Kate always had a sense of good taste and as far as I can remember she never went back to The Nugget in the two years we were an item. Just as well, The Nugget was more a manly kinda' place.
The Nugget fell from grace with the Trinity crowd just a couple of years after I left, being abandoned for upscale fern bars like the Bombay Bicycle Club and the Nugget slowly faded away. The building became an aquarium supply shop before being torn down sometime in the late '70s as the neighborhood redeveloped. I saw Roger once again in the early 80's when my friend Gen. Tom Hill and I took a driving tour of the area. Roger was trying to start a new bar near Trinity but it obviously was not going well and the next time I was in San Antonio the building was vacant and Roger had vanished forever. But the memory of The Nugget lingers on and honestly I cannot hear Marving Gaye's "What's goin on" or the Doors "Break on through" without thinkin of that big black light tiger on the wall at the Nugget Lounge.
My fraternity brothers and I had "adopted" a stretch of Hildebrand Ave. west of Trinity University as our project. More specifically our stretch of road was occupied by only one building...."The Nugget Lounge". As a service to the community and to Roger, the owner, about once a week we would pick up all the litter [i.e. beer cans] that had accumulated out front and throw it out back. Though altruistic in effect, the real reason we cleaned up was that it kept municipal agencies from invetigating what went on inside.
The Nugget Lounge was one of those places that mothers of sons entering college hoped their sons would never find. In fact, places like the Nugget Lounge are one of the first places that sons entering college do find. Thanks to upperclassmen I found it before I found my classes. Roger was a sweetheart of an owner who's thought was that being 21 years old was only a "guideline" in serving beer. Having $1.50 to pay for it trumped age in importance; being 17 years old was close enough. A true free market economist!
Roger let us treat the Nugget like our own and since Trinity students basically financed it's operation I suppose it was. A dive when we "discovered" the Nugget, Roger let us fix it up to our tastes. Art students painted a groovey hippie black light tiger on the wall [Trinity's mascot] and we changed the juke box adding The Doors to the basic Ferlin Husky selection. On Sunday evenings during the Spring and Summer we intiated an elegant hamburger "buffet", served from the grill out back among the trash. Actually we had a symbiotic relationship with Roger and the Nugget. He served anyone cheap beer and we kept the Nugget open....and Roger alive.
I won't say that Roger had a problem with alcohol but when someone drinks beer 15 hours a day every day of the week, well you judge. Quite often about the 13th hour Roger would get quite "sleepy" and turn the bar over to one of the students to run while he went to lie down. I can't recall anyone ever abusing the privelage. During the cold months when Roger would go "lie down", his favorite spot was in the parking lot out front where he would stretch out in his 1957 white Cadillac with the motor running and heat on. We were especially alert during these times and would periodically send someone out to check and make sure Roger wasn't dead. He usually wasn't.
The Nugget was a place of conviviality and good cheer; home to several fraternities and for several years the Trinity football team. But it wasn't for everyone, like the faint of heart. During my junior year I started dating a freshman, "Kate", who is still a good friend [hi Kate if you are reading this in Crested Butte]. After "Kate" and I had been out a few times I thought it only proper to take her to the "in spot", The Nugget. Having only been enjoying the Nugget for a few moments that evening, Kate made the observation I can still hear as if it were yesteday, "This place is disgusting". Kate always had a sense of good taste and as far as I can remember she never went back to The Nugget in the two years we were an item. Just as well, The Nugget was more a manly kinda' place.
The Nugget fell from grace with the Trinity crowd just a couple of years after I left, being abandoned for upscale fern bars like the Bombay Bicycle Club and the Nugget slowly faded away. The building became an aquarium supply shop before being torn down sometime in the late '70s as the neighborhood redeveloped. I saw Roger once again in the early 80's when my friend Gen. Tom Hill and I took a driving tour of the area. Roger was trying to start a new bar near Trinity but it obviously was not going well and the next time I was in San Antonio the building was vacant and Roger had vanished forever. But the memory of The Nugget lingers on and honestly I cannot hear Marving Gaye's "What's goin on" or the Doors "Break on through" without thinkin of that big black light tiger on the wall at the Nugget Lounge.
