Adventures of the Third Lost Expedition, Part VIII: Putting on the ritz

March 22, 1985

Adventures of the Third Lost Expedition, Part VIII: 

Putting on the ritz.

CAPTAIN’S LOG, BAR DATE XXX: Beware the Ides of March, the soothsayer once advised, and the Captain had that ancient admonition well in mind when the communicator signaled a few astral weeks ago. On the other end of the hailing frequency was a man with an offer.

        Dennis Haner was his name. He labored in the North Tonawanda galaxy for an outfit called Celebrity Limousine service and he was wondering if The Third Lost Expedition could find a use for one of his chauffeured cars for an evening. For free.

        The Captain pondered this generous offer for a millisecond – it meant that he wouldn’t have to pilot the shuttlecraft himself – then reflected on the nature of the next stretch of the universe that the trek would cover in its mission to have a drink in every licensed establishment on fabled federal Route 62 from Niagara Falls to El Paso, Texas. Or as close to El Paso as they could get. Coming up on the Ides of March was the fancy section of the commercial strip on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Amherst and Tonawanda.

        “Don’t you think we’ll be calling too much attention to ourselves?” the Chief Science Officer advised.

        “Not a chance,” the Captain scoffed. “On this part of the boulevard, they won’t even notice.”

        So it came to pass that the entire contingent from the West Side of Buffalo found itself nestled into the plush upholstery of a gleaming, black, stretch-body 1985 Lincoln Continental. In the back, behind the smoked glass, was liquor in three cut-glass decanters, a champagne cooler and a color TV. In the front was a cellular telephone. Behind the wheel was one of the principals of Celebrity Limousine Service. He introduced himself as Steve George.

        The Captain had seen fit to pack a celebratory bottle of champagne and, as it was being poured, Steve reported how he and the others decided to start Celebrity Limo. It seems they couldn’t line up a limousine for a special function last year. So, perceiving a need, they ordered half a dozen custom-stretched cars from New York City at a cost of about $40,000 each.

        As befitted its name, the designated staging area, T. J. Dugan’s at 1980 Niagara Falls Blvd., was decked to the nines for St. Patrick’s Day with Irish flags, green garlands, shamrocks and green-clad bartenders and waitresses.

        But rolling up in a limo bigger than the Blarney Stone curried no special favors in the warehouse-like dining room. Since the place takes no reservations for its enormously popular Friday fish fry, the Captain duly put his name on the list and settled in for about an hour’s wait, an interval made more pleasant by the fact that one of the trekkers was a good friend of one of the barmen, who graciously bought a round.

        The music on the sound system had shifted from big-band favorites to rock oldies by the time the safari was seated and the demographics of the place had changed accordingly. The famous $4.25 fish fry fulfilled its reputation. As the food arrived, so did the rest of the party, some of which was doubling as a birthday celebration for the Quartermaster. By the time they left Dugan’s, the troupe numbered 25 – the biggest ever.

        But not all of them had the appetite to join the limousine crew at the next destination, John and Mary’s A-Bomb Submarines at 1960 Falls Blvd. Nevertheless, it had beer on tap, $3.25 a pitcher. While the expeditioners milled amid the Formica tables, a bevy of high schoolers wearing “Panthers” jackets flocked around the limo.

        The Native American guide, who’d dressed for the occasion in white coat, black shirt, skinny white tie and black leather pants, announced to the curious teens that he was a rock star and the rest were his entourage. They besieged him for autographs.

        From instant celebrity, the limo whisked them to instant pariah-hood at Hubie’s Restaurant, a former Mr. Steak at the eastbound entrance to the I-290. They joined the rest of the safari in shuffling glumly around a raised seating platform at the rear of the place. Since Hubie’s had no specified bar area, the manager had officiously corralled them there, where they waited thirstily until one of them waylaid a waiter and got some pitchers of beer.

        The trekkers quaffed their beers quickly and backtracked to the Sassafras Lounge at the Holiday Inn-Amherst, 1881 Falls Blvd. Steve, exerting the limousine’s right to privilege, parked smack in the middle of the loading zone and stayed there, uncontested.

        Inside was the standard state-of-the-art Holiday Inn drinking place, plush and full of well-polished woodwork and would-be Romeos, as two female crew members who arrived early discovered. One Romeo wore Walkman headphones. A red-jacketed show band, John Tomasula and Rare Blend, provided a slick invitation to dance.

        With the Sabres game locked in sudden-death overtime, there was a considerable reluctance to leave the car and sample the tributes to the kings of sport in Champions, the club that’s succeeded the venerable Three Coins at 1620 Falls Blvd. Aside from the removal of the Roman finery that once graced the place and the installation of sport souvenirs, it seemed at first as if it hadn’t changed much at all.

        But beyond the $1 charge at the door, some subtle and not-so-subtle differences became evident. The old dining room was walled off with whitewashed plywood. The band, a high-energy dance group called Junction West, held forth from what used to be the dance floor. And near the bar was a smaller dance area marked off with inlaid lights to resemble a football field. The demographics had narrowed considerably. The older, dressier crowd was gone.

        Although it was well past midnight, it seemed to early to beam the limo home, so the safari staggered onward to the Tin Lizzie at 1376 Falls Blvd., a small and straightforward sort of bar and restaurant with a marvelous old Model T Ford proudly sitting in the front window.

        Few of the trekkers could remember much about the Tin Lizzie aside from the license plates on the walls and the startingly fresh popcorn, which seemed to be in infinite supply. When the Captain exited, he found the Chief Science Officer and the Quartermaster sitting mute and oblivious atop a soggy snowbank next to the club.

        As Steve set the limo’s coordinates for Buffalo’s West Side, he noted that the crew had consumed not only their own champagne, but also the bottle that came with the car. He added that he’d never seen a bunch of people walk out of bars with more glassware than the expeditioners had that night. And he found it peculiar that the trekkers actually paid for their food and drink. When he’d driven people from the radio stations, he said, they always got everything for free.