It's My Life #3 - Richmond Hotel

It was 1982 the high/low point of preppy and I was the style’s poster child – I had more pastel polo shirts than Ralph Lauren, more pairs of Docksiders than a shoe store, more khakis than the Gap and countless pairs of argyle socks. It was a good thing I was 6’ 120lbs because with all the layers of shirts I would wear I would have looked like I was 300lbs.

Trust me this boy could pop a collar.

My friends decided it would be fun to take my prissy self to a country bar, The Richmond Hotel, just a little outside of Bangor. I thought I was going to a hotel bar, you know like the King Cole Bar at the St. Regis or at least the Tap Room at the Hotel B.

Not even close.

I walk into this place with 3 polo shirts on, pink, light green and baby blue, Khaki shorts, blue docksiders and reeking of Polo cologne. Everyone stopped; the place went silent except for the jukebox. My so called friends were rolling on the floor.

The Richmond Hotel is not really a hotel, it is not even a pretend hotel with fine dining, it did not have a cocktail menu, it did not have a food menu, it did have about 30 Harley’s parked in the lot.

So, I stood there for a second, my friend Sue, who was one badass chick realized that perhaps they could have warned me, came up behind me nuzzled my neck and moved me to the bar. All she said was “I’m sorry and do not order a gin and tonic or a Miller”. I ordered a draft beer and I turned two of my collars down.

I suspect I was not the first gay boy to enter the place but I was the most obvious one that evening. Apparently Dykes with Bikes were OK there as I would find out later.

I love juke boxes and often spend more money on them than the bar and since tap beers were 35 cents it was not hard to do. Everyone was waiting for Donna Summer and I gave them every Rolling Stones song available.

A few beers later I was working the crowd, registering people to vote. Did anyone ever tap their beer bottle on another beer bottle and watch the bottom bottle over flow with foam? It was my ice breaker of the evening.

Near the end of the evening this rather husky woman in a leather vest and blue jeans tapped me on the shoulder. “Wanna go for a ride before last call?”

There we were a lesbian, a skinny gay boy and a Harley riding up and down the country roads spraying the Bangor suburbs with Polo by Ralph Lauren.

I woke up on one of my friend’s floor with the worst taste in my mouth I have ever had.