Tropics Lounge Life Lesson

Tropics Lounge in 1979

 Wichita, Kansas---We stood next to our friend’s shiny blue Monte Carlo facing police officers. How had it all gone so wrong? It started out to be a night with a group of friends going to “the big City” to have fun. We headed there with no goal of mischief. Our idea was to go dive bar hopping. As a group of six , we could go inside places that at our age, ranging from 18 to 20, we would not have frequented alone…or at all.  The drinking age was 18 for 3.2 beer so it would take a few to feel anything, but this was not a night to drink a lot. This was an adventure of seeing the under belly of Wichita, Kansas.

Somewhere in the midst of a bar whose interior looked like a garage sale had thrown up all over the walls, someone suggested we take a piece of memorabilia from each bar.

And so we did.

Did I mention we were all city employees of a nearby town, employed as their lifeguard crew for the summer?

A pool table's eight ball, an orange life buoy, a glass here, a mug there…our collection grew in the trunk of the car and it was time to go home.

As we headed down an alternative highway back to our hometown, someone mentioned a cool looking bar coming up on the side of this highway. This wasn’t a dive bar but it definitely was not a bar for under the age of 30 either. But in the spirit of exploration, we stopped at the Tropics Lounge.


In the middle of Kansas we got a taste of Hawaii as we stepped into a small Tiki themed bar. There were only a couple of people there that night so we played some pool, sang loudly to the jute box and continued with our secret collection. The problem was, when we were leaving, someone decided to walk out with the coat rack at the same time that two police cars passed by.

With our attention turned to the open trunk, the coat rack half ways in and all other contents exposed, we were surrounded by several officers.

Line up six Kansas teenagers that had never been in trouble with the law and what do you get besides some wet pants?

Forgiveness.

Huh?

Bob, the owner slowly walked down the sidewalk to the scene. Never looking inside the trunk he addressed the cops.

“Howdy Boys. I have no trouble here so you boys go on.”

They protested and he insisted. They left and we stood, heads down, embarrassed, ashamed and yes, baffled.

Then still not glancing in the trunk Bob said to us, “I do not mind you kids coming in my bar. But I do mind you taking (enter entire list of absolutely everything we had taken) from my bar. Please return it and come back another time.”

We thought we were so slick and sneaky and he had seen every slip of the hand and every disappearing mug.

We drove home slower than the speed limit and I cried the entire way. We were put in a position of responsibility in our town yet went to another and behaved worse than the kids we condemned for stealing at the pool. Yet Bob not only forgave us, he welcomed us back.


Now, 33 years later I was in Wichita and all of a sudden got the “I’ve been here before” feeling. It was "that highway" I realized.  I was near route 81. I turned and let intuition lead. Would it actually still be there?

And there is was, slightly different but it was there. Now called Tropics Bar and Grill, I walked in and just stared at the walls. Not wanting anything to drink I realized that the owner was eyeing me strangely so I explained. Still ashamed, I told her the story and asked about Bob. She pointed to a line drawing in the corner and said she did not know anything more than he had once owned it.

I let my mind go back to the time when five friends and I could have had a different projection in our lives. If arrested, we would have made the news and lost our jobs---let alone all the repercussions.

I had been back there since that day. A year after it happened I sat at that bar alone. With Bob in front of me chatting happily to a hand full of customers. I was home from college on a break and felt the need to go talk to him.



A sketch of "Bob", the past owner

Finally I mustered up the courage and said, “Excuse me. You probably don’t remember me but you made a huge difference in my life.”

“Coat rack,” he quickly snapped.

Surprised I looked directly at him. He was a slim old man with a weathered face that at first look was very uninviting. He looked tough and seemed to have a life that had earned that look. But between all the wrinkles a smile would break out and a sparkle would suddenly appear in his eyes. He could turn it off, he could turn it on.

I took a deep breath and apologized again the best I could. I told him how much it meant to me and what a huge lesson I had learned.

But I also wanted to know why. Why? Why let six brats, who had disrupted his business and stolen from him, why let us off?

“I’ve had my breaks,” was all he said.

And that was that. But the lessons learned at the Tropics Lounge remain.