I cut my bartending teeth at the Tradewinds in '91. My summer internship blew up (the graba** boss decided to cut my wages in half after I had been on the job for a couple weeks). I moved back to Ames and strung together multiple part-time jobs trying to scape moo-lah together before fall semester.
Steve was at a softball tournament the first time he left me at the bar alone for a night. It was a typical slow summer weekend night, the regulars had taken off, I was cleaning up. A seriously drunk guy stumbled in the backdoor, told me there was a gas leak. I poked my head around the corner and someone had chained a bike to the pipes attached to the gas meter, the bike was yanked, the pipe came out of the meter, it was quite the deal. I called 911, was put on hold. Allllll the firetrucks eventually showed up, and there I am in cutoffs and inappropriate t-shirt. They asked me to list all the gas appliances in the building - ahhh, I don't know. Next door, BJ's Lucky Lady was rocking. An intense conversation occurred amongst the fire fighters about the need to evacuate the block. No one wanted to tell BJ's to shut it down. They stuffed bar towels down the pipe, duct taped it, and called it a night. They told me I needed to wait for the gas crew to show up for the real repairs. When Steve finally rolled in I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He told me of all the first nights alone at the bar, I won first place.
RIP SS
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