V(ery) F(oreign) W(andering)

The sign was unavoidable: Drink Labatt’s drafts for $1.75 here! The barkeep—clad in slim, stone washed jeans from the mid-90s and blonde-to-the-brown root hair reaching her shoulders, draped in a white unbuttoned sweater—flipped the keg tap like a light switch. “Sorry, sweetie, can’t take your money,” she warned, dropping the pint on a coaster. The sign actually read: V.F.W. post 6417, which is just American for “Drink Labatt’s drafts for $1.75 here!” At this local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, American dollars are only good leaving the hands of its members. If only the Defense Authorization Act of 2009 included in its provisions—along with authorizing veterans of every ilk to salute the flag during the national anthem—the right to pay for beers despite never serving, I might still be on my stool. Instead, the cash passed hands; liquor laws were circumvented.

The Palmyra V.F.W. has been around for years. The smoke-filled walls—ceiling tiles shaded in a yellow tobacco tint—are a sanctuary for generations of townies. Localism survives here. Wooden tables, none the same, are dressed in plastic table cloths and circled by wobbly metal chairs. The scent of fried perogies drifts. A son swallows Miller High Life ("The Champagne of Beers") alongside his pool-shark father who routinely deposits his tongue into the mouth of his lady friend. She is neither skinny nor young. Her thong rises above her belt line. Nobody cares. They’ve all seen it before.

Sunday night at 6714 is quiet. The 50 year-old at the end of the bar, adjacent to the under lit dart board, will saunter to the juke box, several beers deep, and spend five dollars on a number of songs nobody paid to hear when they were released. But some sonic righteousness lingers amid the Toby Keith and ACDC and Kid Rock. John Mayer, Fiest, Floyd, post-2003 Dixie Chicks. The NFL weekend culminates on NBC on TVs above the bar.

There’s little good to be said about being 27, quitting your job, squatting with your parents in the house where you grew up, and drinking at local canteens with old friends from high school. Still, it does highlight a few things about life that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. Like the fact that, in watering holes on Main Streets across battleground states, Keystone Premium lager goes for fifty cents a can just feet from where four bottles of laundry detergent and two family-size cans of Chef Boyardee Ravioli adorn five shelves—otherwise empty except for a withered, grinning pumpkin.

John, the friend whose membership on which I drank, said, “My dad’s on the board. He’s been here since the first brick was laid.”

When was that?

“The late 70s, I think. This place is awesome. If you get stuck staying in town for a long time, you should definitely join.”

“Excuse me,” he interrupts the bartender. “How much does a membership cost?”

“If you sign up now, it’s twenty dollars for the rest of November, all of December and next year.” She seemed oblivious to the frugality of it all.

No shit. I tried to relocate to New York City from Washington, DC, after stints in Philadelphia and San Diego—not exactly affordable markets—yet I could move home, pay zero rent, and drink an assortment of beers, none exceeding two dollars. Let it be known that there are places in the U.S. suited to serve those with a palate for flat beer and a history of economic calamity.

The night we sat and watched the Patriots/Colts Sunday night NFL game, John told me to expect a slew of drunkards we knew from a past life (read: high school) to stumble in, some asking the barkeep to toss their leftovers in the microwave. At 6714, paid dues bring reheat access of any and all food purchased elsewhere. If you’re a member, our house is your house. Indeed. But what about non-veterans?

“Wait a second, John, none of these clowns were ever in the military.” Scrutiny. “How the do they get in?”

John was quick to explain. “You just need to be related to a veteran. They won't let you in if you're not a member, unless you come with one." His dad was in Vietnam, like mine. "That’s how I got in; I’ve been coming here since I was thirteen.” He’s 28. "They don't even ask for my I.D." They asked for my I.D.

Palmyra is not a city, although it’s becoming less small town by the day. In fields where we once ride dirt bikes and paged through safely-hidden, crusty dog-eared porno mags, condos were erected. The former horseshoe loop in front of our high school more resembles the braided rivers of Denali than a drop off point for underclassmen. There’s now an ice rink; no one plays hockey. Still, this is Main Street—a presidential campaign’s rhetorical device actualized. Palmyra is the town Barack Obama and John McCain have been courting all across the country. The problem is, tonight, nobody in this V.F.W. post cares.

Just under 48 hours from the most historic election of the past 50 years, the game is regularly partitioned by political ads. And judging by the interest level of the familial crew to our right, and the reputed statutory rapist on the left, neither McCain nor Obama garnered any attention. TV ads didn’t induce a peek. Priorities may lie elsewhere in Main Street America after listening to the same tired bullshit for so long. If anything, the eyes staring down their helf-empty glasses weren't planning to peer up until it was all over.

Which leads me to this: after two years of campaigning and endless polls taken by every partisan organization on Earth—24 hours of blow-hardedness, multiplied by 730 days, equaling a nauseating 17,520 hours of cable news speculation—how can anyone have any clue who the hell is going to win on Tuesday, November 4? I don’t live in small town America, but I visit occasionally. And inside this place of patriotism and Pabst, $3.50 Cordon Blue Balls and stereotypes, there is no way an accurate guess of the 2008 election could be extrapolated. Does a pro-military loathing for immigrants and colored folks trump a desire for a common sensical commander-in-chief? Do cowboy boots, Marlboro Lights, and Carharts disqualify you from tolerance and expectations of reasonably administered government and peace?

So, for once, in a country originally conceived with freedom, but demonstrably typified by prejudice—truthfully perceived as “racist” areas, as John Murtha so described western Pennsylvania—a candidate with a heritage as diverse as America could actually assume the office of president. And finally personify, 232 years later, the opportunity articulated in the documents of our founding—ideas that have made men veterans of foreign wars.