As the last few hours of my solstice break leak away (an unpleasant analogy hovers just beneath the level of consciousness), I’m faced with the unthinkable.  My favorite drinking spot, the bar where I grade my essays on Saturday and Sunday afternoons is closing tomorrow. Think Bret Harte’s “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” Jack London’s “To Build a Fire,”  Nevil Shute’s On the Beach.  I feel hopeless, lost, and abandoned; set adrift on a leaky raft as my former cruise ship heaves it bow before the plunge.

What will become of my beloved bartenders?  The regulars, those connoisseurs of craft beers? Those other regulars, lovable losers like me?

Oh, I know there’re other bars on Folly.  That’s like telling Romeo, “Hey, Bub, there’s other chicks,”  or Dante, “Florence ain’t the only city state in Italy.”

Watch it and weep!