NEIGHBORHOOD WATERING HOLES SLICE OF AMERICANA

Southeast Missourians don't have to go far to sample a bit of Americana as enduring as mom and apple pie.

Scattered throughout the region are small business establishments that are as much an integral part of their communities as the local churches and town halls.

The very names of these businesses beckon customers in search of a cold beer, a bite to eat, a billiards or card game, or just good conversation.

The Down Spout, Happy Hollow, the Central Inn, the Pilot House, Schindler's Tavern and countless other small taverns in Southeast Missouri combine a good time, food and drink to outlast more trendy nightclubs that draw larger crowds but for a season.

To walk though the door of one of these neighborhood watering holes jealousy championed by their regular customers is to step back in time.

While other club owners mimic bars along the coasts, trading in the dance floor and garish lights of the '70s for ferns and a big-screen TV in the '80s, and reverting to the lights and a throbbing sound system in the '90s, these small taverns remain unaffected.

The mounted fish and critters on the wall might be 30 years old. The Hamm's clock and bar light has been there for at least 20 years. Where a patron might drink alongside a velvet Elvis in the Yankee counterpart of Schindler's, for example, he'll instead sit beneath the watchful eye of a larger-than-life print of Bocephus at the New Hamburg tavern.

Brenda Schwepker of Oran bought Schindler's about a year ago. But she sat on the other side of the bar for years before.

For more than 125 years, Schindler's, situated across the street from St. Lawrence Catholic Church, has been the social hub for New Hamburg's 300 or so residents.

"I think we're well-known by folks from all over this part of the state," Schwepker said. "I think people hear about us and are curious."

But, she added, whether its because of the patented "bologna burgers" Schindler's serves, the weekly shooting matches and euchre games, or the annual "Cow Pasture Classic," they always seem to come back.

"We'll have anywhere from 500 to 1,000 people down here in March for the Classic," Schwepker said. "Basically, it's a golf tournament in a cow pasture using tennis balls and whatever for a club."

The event raises money for the Cerebral Palsy Telethon in Sikeston.

Glenda Atchison of Benton helps her sister serve food and drinks at Schindler's. She said it's hard to explain what makes the bar special.

"People just come in here to be themselves," she said. "It's a family bar. People can come in here, bring their kids, get a bite to eat, and they don't have to worry about foul language or fighting."

"This is a very friendly community," added Schwepker. "Our customers first came in here when they were kids, and now they bring their kids in here. It's really something that's passed down from generation to generation.

"I guess, technically, I'm the owner of Schindler's," she said. "But really, the community owns it."

Similarly, the appeal of the Pilot House, first opened in 1958 on the northern outskirts of Cape Girardeau, has little to do with the four walls that comprise the tavern and restaurant.

The most eye-catching fixture in the bar is the riverboat pilot's wheel hanging from the ceiling. But a closer look reveals an eclectic collection of adornments common in "old-time" taverns.

There's a stuffed squirrel running down the wall. Also, an autographed photograph of radio and TV talk-show host, author and Cape Girardeau native Rush Limbaugh is mounted prominently behind the bar.

Barry Davis lives just up the road from the Pilot House. He's a regular customer, who favors the daily lunch specials and famed, custom-smoked meat.

"I come here and I feel comfortable," he said. "It's a neighborhood establishment where you can stop by and say hi to your friends."

John Fitzgerald, who has managed the Pilot House for the past five years, said the clientele is as varied there as any bar in Cape Girardeau. Prominent professionals mingle with college students in the small, one-room tavern.

"It's a very unique clientele, but everyone seems to fit in," Fitzgerald said. "That's the way it's always been. People out here are friends, and they're not here for anything other than to visit and have a good time."

Fitzgerald said the Pilot House food is a big draw. Yet he said the bar's real success derives from something less tangible.

"It's not something you can just sit down and explain, but if you came in here for six months, you'd know," he said. "It's a place that people can call home, not so much because of the bar, but because of the people who come here."

A few miles north of the Pilot House, in the tiny village of Oriole, the Happy Hollow is a daily stop for locals. Nestled along the bank of Allen Creek, which has carved a high bluff behind the bar, the place is aptly named.

Morris "Moe" Jones has owned the bar for the past three years. His father owned it before that.

Formerly a chicken barn and feed store, the building's exterior has changed little in the past 30 years. On any given afternoon, an impromptu musician's jam session might accompany a stop at Happy Hollow.

"Some of the local folks like to bring in guitars and banjos and just sit around a table pickin'," Jones said.

Most of the customers live either in Oriole or "just up the road," Jones said, although "quite a few people just kind of stray through here."

The common strain among Southeast Missouri's unassuming watering holes is their adherence to a past age when the corner bar was the after-work stop off for blue-collar America.

"I think people like to have an old-fashioned place where they can walk through the door and know everybody's first name," said Davis. "They're the people you work with and live with. You know their dreams and disappointments.

"This is where you can come and relax with friends and get away from it all for a few hours."