Travels With Buddha — -ch8 — -Smiley’s Schooner Saloon, Warf Road, Bolinas, County of Marin, California — — “It’s funny how falling seems like flying for a little while”

History tells us that not long ago in the sleepy, hippy-infested fishing village of Bolinas, California there were three centers of hospitality. All on one block of Warf Road (facing each other): Snarly’s Restaurant and Cafe, Surly’s Deli and Cigar Bar, and Smiley’s Schooner Saloon.

Snarly’s became an art museum, Surly’s is a small cafe/coffee bar (The Coast Cafe). Only Smiley’s is still there. Purported to have been established in 1851 it lays claim to be the oldest bar in continuous operation in the state of California. (We’ve heard this before about other places, really it is all bullshit, no one knows the truth) Smiley’s survived the fires of the 1870’s, the 1906 earthquake, and during prohibition in the1920’s it was craftily disguised as a barber shop with a gin room in the back. Currently Smiley’s is a two story white-washed wood frame building with a front porch, upstairs balcony with rooms for let, darkened interior lined with clear fir bead-board stained the color of red mahogany, and a stand up bar running the length of one side. There is a piano and a pool table. There are country rock bands that come out from the city (San Francisco) to play on Saturday night. It is, by all indications, a happening place.

Enter Buddha.

Possibly I have made a mistake. Introducing Buddha to life in a Blue Lake taverna was one thing. Agreeing to take him to a local hard spirits distillery for an extended tasting of Jewell Gin (blended from clear spirits and 13 kinds of juniper berries) is something else entirely. When we leave Blue Lake Buddha is in the back of the van sleeping it off. He stays passed out all the way south along Avenue of the Giants and the Humboldt Redwood Highway.

I will admit that I love the flavor of gin and tonics. Under certain circumstances (hot climates, warm ocean, sand between my toes) I can drink one or two before falling asleep. I am the lightest of light-weight drinkers. But Buddha can drink me under the table. It is quite possible that in some former incarnation he was part of the Raj, sipping endless G&T’s on the veranda of the Polo Club on some bodhi-tree lined street in a suburb of Old Bombay. The first thing he wants to do in Bolinas is go to Smiley’s.

I arrange a tour through part of my extended Bolinas family. Katie a lovely local brewmaster of botanical elixirs and hand creams and Sam Wiseman a local color commentator whom I am convinced will become a successful stand up comedian.

It is salsa night at Smiley’s. We get there late, things are winding down and the evening softly subsides into an extended conversation of how to avoid DUI’s and who has been recently eighty-sixed from the bar. I believe it is not all that Buddha hoped for. As we head home with Sam a bright super-moon is blazing over the ocean and the western sky.

In the second floor bedroom I quickly fall asleep leaving Buddha with only a dream of his next gin and tonic. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking maybe it is time for him to dry out.

So maybe we will head for the monastery.