The outside was the same, it’s looked the same for 50 years. A dilapidated brick building with the big black cat sign, tucked in an alley.

At first glance, it’s the dive I remembered. I’m sure I smiled. They had great Long Island’s. They’d use five types of liquor, Hell the vapors peeled wallpaper. I ordered a beer, and sat at the tiny bar, taking it in.

There was an air of nonchalance reticence and pot which hung thick around the bar. Millenniums with faux bed heads, trucker hats or short brimmed straw fedoras sat around me. Pale, hung over and drinking PBR . Most wearing Ironic 70’s T’s with “Kiss My Grits” and “I survived Sol Rubin’s Bar Mitzvah”.

“God!” I thought, “This is a Hippster bar!” Of course none of them would ever admit their hippsterism, since that smacks of conformity.

I left with the words of Bill Bryson ringing in my head, “There are things you just can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company, you can’t make a waiter see you until he’s ready to see you, and you can’t go home again.â€?