18th Amendment ... the End of an Era

When most people here 18th Amendment they think of Prohibition.  For me 18th Amendment has another meaning.  I think of a bar on Pennsylvania Avenue in SouthEast DC.  A bar that I am sad to say closed its doors this weekend.    

18th Amendment is hallowed ground.  It is where so much of my first years in DC were lived.  For a long time, it was the place where every exciting moment of my life took place.  Every Thursday many Hill staffers made their way to 18th to sing karaoke and drink cheap Miller High Life.  Many of my friendships in this city were made at 18th Amendment over a song, a High Life, or a late night shrimp poboy.  It used to be great, I used to be great when I hung out there.  

The Harper of 18th Amendment was bold, sassy, and empowered.  It was in those walls that I did some of my very best flirting.  I made out with several cute boys there.  I danced even if no one else was because I wanted to.  I sang many terrible songs, with groups of friends, and didn’t care that my voice can make cats cry.  This is where I learned to shoot Jameson like a pro and realized that it was sexy to do so.   

It wasn’t all cocktails and good times.  Life hit me pretty hard a few times while sitting in that bar.  We were at 18th Amendment the night D told me he had a girlfriend.  After shit hit the fan, I sat at the bar and drowned my sorrows with Vicki and Deek.  The night several months later, when D got jealous, and told me he didn’t like seeing me with anyone else, the conversation that ruined our functioning friendship took place at 18th.  When I lost my job, 18th Amendment is where I went to drink away the disappointment.   

I haven’t been by in months; I don’t think any of the old group has.  Somewhere along the way, life happened.  We got more responsibility, and we had to give things up.  People grow apart, and the places you used to go together lose their luster.  I have thought about stopping by a million times, but something always seems to come up.  Never did I think that there would be a day that 18th wouldn’t be there. In my mind, Vicki would always be ready to pour me a shot and tell me that all my problems lie in my poor taste in men.     

I want to pay homage to one of the places that helped shape me and my life in this city.  If the walls of 18th Amendment could talk, I am sure they would have some great stories to tell, and several of them involving me.