It's Civil Thursdays at the ole pub

​Civil Thursdays
 
Thursdays at the pub tend to be pretty busy from opening on. The bar is packed with regulars, and the tables both inside and outside gradually fill with cheerful beer lovers.
 
The Civil Hour group generally arrives early. Among them you’ll find the Count of Monte Carlo, English professor and world traveler. He has lived in almost every city on the planet and perhaps even in cities on planets yet to be discovered. His group engages in lively conversation fuelled by good drink, snacks, and, of course, civility.
 
One regular couple takes a break from a hectic week of work and family to restore with pints and sandwiches. Another couple plots their strategies for the next Pennsic War (held annually by the Society for Creative Anachronism) over pints of cask beer.
 
By seven pm, a group of traveling minstrels arrives (twice a month) with fiddles, mandolins, banjos, and other instruments in tow. They are led by two of the metro areas most talented beer drinkers.
 
One of these men hosts the wildly popular KDHX program “Down Yonder” (Saturdays 11–1). Over the course of the evening he showers the staff of Civil Life with an inexhaustible supply of coins, like some benevolent numismatic deity.
 
The other man is a tall bearded fellow, bearing a striking resemblance to his ancestor, who famously painted a panoramic depiction of the entire Mississippi River Valley on a canvas over half a mile wide. These artistic talents were translated in musical skill in our regular, who saws madly at his fiddle, while dipping whatever is handy into horseradish sauce. So powerful is his addiction to this savory root (the densest concentration of which grows just south of Collinsville), we have to dole it out to him like methadone.
 
Together these gentlemen lead an old time jam band, playing plenty of bluegrass music out on our patio. We supply the musicians with some pints in order to support the arts and promote civility.
 
Outdoor drinkers and diners listen and sometimes even dance while enjoying pints of great beer and tasty snacks lovingly prepared by Tony and Dave.
 
When you head back to the bar, just be careful not to get roped into a lengthy conversation about Estonian woodworking with a regular having a crazed look in his eye and his hand clamped in a death grip around his dry cider (or Czech Pilsner, when it’s available). You’ll remember this regular as the young man who was almost Civil Life Customer of the Year last year!
 
Good beer, good food, good music, friendly regulars, and conversation. That’s Thursday at the Civil Life. See you then!