Menu
LAST-MINUTE MUSINGS: Daniels cites Bainbridge Tap in WaPo column
BAINBRIDGE — Back when Mitch Daniels was roaming the highways and biways of Indiana in his ubiquitous RV, his love of the only waterin’ hole in Bainbridge was well known, at least locally.
No, it wasn’t that Daniels needed a Miller Lite whenever he was on that particular stretch of U.S. 36. He craved the “great taste/less filling” delight of something else: The Tap’s signature frog legs.
Daniels visited the Tap on a number of occasions “during a decade of constant travel through our state” as gubernatorial candidate and later two-term governor from 2005-13.
Once, this intrepid reporter even had the honor of introducing Gov. Daniels at a meeting of the Greencastle Rotary Club — after which the governor shared his tasty frog legs with some of us in attendance.
On Tuesday, Daniels brought attention to the Tap for another reason — former owner Jan Williams’ standards of barroom decorum.
In a column for The Washington Post titled “In a nasty era, insisting on basic politeness is a revolutionary idea,” Daniels’ focused on the lack of politeness in public discourse and everyday life.
He cited some business owners who refuse to accept the “customer is always right” mantra if it means other patrons and staff have to endure their abuse.
“These folks should have met my friend Jan Williams,” Daniels wrote. “Jan ran her Bainbridge Tap with, shall we say, high standards.”
Daniels goes on to describe the “Barred for Life” list Williams kept taped to the kitchen door, listing 10 or 12 names of former patrons who were not welcomed back.
He further elaborated:
Even though I had just met Jan, I had to ask, “Really? For life?” (Answer: “It means what it says.”) “Okay,” I said, “what gets a person barred for life?”
The range of transgressions included: fighting; breaking a beer bottle over another guy’s head (that he was dancing too close to the perp’s girlfriend was not deemed exculpatory); breaking a beer bottle over your husband’s head (Jan’s rules were gender-neutral); bringing a minor into the bar, or being the minor brought in; trying to run over Jan in the parking lot; or, most memorably, throwing a dead possum in the back of Jan’s pickup truck. Jan gave no second chances and brooked no appeals of her convictions. In the Tap, rules were rules.
The former governor went on to point out that there are encouraging signs that Americans are tired of basic manners. Not only are there other small business owners like Williams, but tech giants Google and Twitter have enacted filters to reduce hostile expression.
Daniels also cited the negative effects on learning that disruptive and violent behavior can have on students.
As governor, Daniels was certainly a polarizing figure. His defenders will note an era of unprecedented fiscal stability into which he shepherded the state. Detractors will note the negative effect his tenure and those that followed have had on public education in Indiana.
I can personally say that I often disagreed with Daniels’ policies. However, I never doubted the man’s civility. In the handful of times I met him, he was always attentive and respectful of my time and questions.
He didn’t have to do that for a small-town reporter in an area where demographics suggested he would easily win.
I can’t say every politician who’s passed through this area has shared Daniels’ attitude.
And so, love his policies or hate them, make no mistake that Daniels has the bona fides when it comes to politeness and decency.
Even if you’re a diehard Hoosier fan, you can trust this Purdue University president when he talks about decorum.
Daniels even concluded his column by returning to the subject of Jan Williams and the Tap.
“Jan Williams was a great small-business person,” Daniels wrote, “but I sometimes wish she’d have chosen to become a school principal instead. She’d probably have posted a sign: ‘If you don’t meet our expectations for decorum, leave.’”