And guys, this place is just awesome. Kilkenny's is to Arnie's as central heat is to a wood-burning, potbelly stove. It's as real as it gets. No trendy, hipster millenials here. Just Salt of the Earth people with all their flaws, which reminds me of the Irish. Oh, and they allow smoking, for all you Tolkien Trads who love your cigar or pipe.
Cigar or Pipe?
Let's crack our knuckles and compare and contrast. The cigar.
They range from Swisher Sweets all the way up to your Cubans. The cigar conjures up the hallowed image of the business elite making the toughest, highest tier decisions in a smoke-filled room late a night. The pipe reminds me of Gandalf sitting by the fire musing about the different kinds of humanoid beings in Middle Earth.
I imagine that the Cigar fits well your Salesman, with an expense account, and a healthy bank account. There is something symbolic about cigars and $$$.
It seems the cigar is a symbol of financial success.
On the other hand, I imagine the pipe fitting well the quiet, melancholic, intellectual. The teacher, therapist, or priest type. I don't know why. But if I were to think of Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien hanging out in a London pub (did those 3 ever get together I wonder), I just can't imagine them smoking cigars as much as pipes.
Maybe Chesterton would have pulled out a cigar.
I'm more a pipe kind of guy I guess. I mean, as ya'll know from my posts asking for help with a laptop--and most recent one about a much needed new armchair (please, pretty please) --my wallet is kinda thin right now. A couple $5 bags of good quality pipe tobacco from Ted's Pipe Shop in Utica Square does me just fine.
Reflects the Hierarchy of Life on Earth.
Not my idea, but God decided the world of Nature--and Human Nature which flows from it--is a Hierarchy. A dog has higher value in the eyes of God than an amoeba. Both are good, but if excellence in design corresponds to being like unto God and thus superior to that which is less like God, then sentient, thinking, feeling beings are superior to single-celled organisms. Of course.
And so too in the Human Kingdom. You've got your aristocrats (unfortunately today mostly devolved into a state of oligarchy),
and your Common man. God's design, not mine, no sir. Among common men, you have the professions and trades, both of which traditionally gave modest pay. Until the second part of the 20th century, for example, doctors were at best middle-class.
And so you will always have your smoke-filled rooms of cigar-smoking, club member, aristocratic (bad version = oligarchic) financial elites, and your Common man who smokes pipes and cigarettes and drinks cheap Whiskey.
Happy Feast of All Saints Fella Okie Trads!