The Beginning

Around 1963 or 1964, Jim Calloway, Jim McRae, and Roger Reedus bought a garage near 8th and Peachtree. Their serious renovation of the building included a long bar stretching almost the length of the long, narrow room, tables, chairs and banquettes. With a jaunty, red-and-white striped awning and a waist-high brick planter outside, and a personal stein for each patron decorating the shelves behind the bar, the Stein Club opened for business.

By the time I got there, in 1967, the steins were still there, but just for decoration. There were far too many patrons for everybody to have his own. If I had to use one word to describe the regular Stein Clubbers, it would be beatnik, although that really doesn’t completely cover it either. There were regionally renowned painters and sculptors drinking side by side with college professors and politicians, the unemployed, and a few hippies wandering up from 14th Street. Lots of waiters and bartenders, came in for what I called the night shift. One of the true regulars was the vice-president of a national bank, another was an engineer and another the producer of a national PBS show. It was the great leveler. There were those who made very good money and those who barely got by. But money didn’t matter. If you were smart and entertaining, funny and well-read, you could drink your fill there any night .

There will be lots to talk about in this blog. For example, the annual spelling bee, which brought in spellers from far and wide and was covered nationally at least once. Dick Price was there at its inception. He has told me the story of how this came about, but it’s been many years since I’ve heard it. Maybe he can fill us in.

I’m pretty sure Dan Connolly was an instigator of the limerick contest. There were a couple of years there where he just about drove me crazy waking me up at seven o’clock in the morning to read me his latest overnight creations. Out of all the wonderful limericks that were written, the only one I remember was for the topic: Lester Maddox and Coretta Scott King - Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows. Bob White wrote, “Ring-a-ding-ding, Coretta Scott King.” All those hundreds of lines of poetry, and that’s it.

There was a rugby team, a dart club, a men’s softball team, the greatly admired women’s softball team and an annual party for the Metropolitan Opera chorus. Surprisingly, the Stein Club was always well represented in the Peachtree Road Race. Harold Moore ran the race for years when you thought he’d have trouble even getting up from the table. Of course, one my great creations was the Annual Christmas Pageant, which never actually happened. The planning was great, though. I remember George Caberas [spelling?] was going to be Round John Virgin and Beverly Couch claimed Heavenly Piece. By all means if anybody remembers other Christmas Pageant names, I would love for you to post them.

And, of course, there was the Stein Club’s answer to the Dogwood Festival. Dare I mention the name? Oh, all right, the Dogshit Festival. Now is probably not the time to go into great detail, but I can say, though he denied it to the grave, that Bob Hatcher was involved in thinking this up. It was not all my idea. And, no, I never planned to be the only Queen.

There were probably well over 200 people who came there at least three times a week, and if you could include all the people who were brought there by a friend, the total is in the thousands. Some people could walk in, have a beer, and never come back. For others like me, entering the Stein Club was like coming home, finally finding my real family. It was seductive. College seemed boring. Actually, everything else was boring. And at the center of this wonderful community was beer. And, Lord, how I loved beer, and so did we all.