Family Weekend is one of the highlights of the fall semester. Laurentian families come together in the North Country, gathering under the changing leaves and late September sun, to spend time with their kids, friends, housemates and family members.
The weekend often includes idyllic walks through campus, a meal at Jake’s on the Water (if you happened to remember to call for a reservation in 2011) and kids teaching parents what they’ve learned at SLU, from slap-cup to trout.
With just two days there’s much to do, and everyone wants to make sure they hit the most important campus spots. Student Center, check. Leckonby Stadium, check. Brewer Bookstore, definitely check.
Come Saturday night, one destination still calls, and only the bravest of parents put it on their list. It’s a place most students know well, but is hard to explain to Mom and Dad. Laurentians know it as “The Ticker,” but talk to any SLU Parent alum, and they’ll quickly correct you – it’s “The Tok.”
As a bartender at The Ticker every Thursday or Saturday night, I have a unique perspective of SLU, and Parents’ Weekend in particular. The biggest question I ask myself after bartending on the Saturday night of Parents’ Weekend is: as students, are we not noticing some of The Ticker’s most unique characteristics, or do we just not care?
It takes an outside perspective to answer this question, and it’s best if it comes from a dad in a vest or a mom wishing her shirt wasn’t stuck to the bar.
A dad walks into the bar (just bear with me), but before he can ask for a drink, or inquire what a “ballsack” is, his hands are stuck to the wooden counter-top. The shock of it is palpable. A bartender goes to tap the “water” button on the soda gun raised high above the bar and begins to wash it down again. This seems to alarm the dad. “No!” he exclaims, and instead finds a paper towel, frantically scans the bar for some Clorox, and proceeds to do his best to clean off his spot.
A sticky counter-top at a decades-old college bar – not that shocking. But, “what is that weirdly lit-up room?” parents ask us. The warren rooms at The Ticker are dimly lit by bar-signs. They feature checkered floors, deep-red leather booths, and mirrors that one hopes to avoid.
So the well-lit, all white, kitchen-resembling room is puzzling to many parents, but it isn’t given a second thought by the gaggles of students with sharpied X’s on their hands. Perhaps for parents it can serve as an oasis, as a few seated at the front bar remark, “I’m being pushed! And I don’t know why!”
But what may be the starkest comparison between students and parents at the bar is their drink orders. At The Ticker the ingredients are minimal, and the drinks are strong. This leaves bartenders feeling guilty for taking a five-dollar tip for mixing the most bare-bones of vodka-cranberries north of the Adirondacks.
“What beer is on tap, any IPAs?” Nope, not even worth an explanation. I’m asked all night what kind of beer we have. The taps say Bud Light and Budweiser, but I’m honestly not sure if what I’m serving is just the available kegged cheap beer. Can a dad tell the difference between a Bud Light and a Busch Light? Can we?
On the topic of drinks, The Ticker’s “top-shelf” got more action this Saturday night than a SLU graduate back for their alumni game could ever hope for. Titos? Don’t have it. But Svedka vodka-sodas were had by all above the age of 50!
One dad requested a specific scotch. I don’t get much call for Glenlivet, but there now exists an open bottle behind the bar. Let that be an invitation to order it from now on, or perhaps it will sit idle until next year’s Family Weekend, when sticky floors, a white-washed kitchen and the IPA’s on tap are brought into question once more.