A Pub Like No Other

"Your standing in it!" the young man at the bar replied to my polite inquiry.

I turned around and began to notice the obvious pictures on the wall. Yep, this is where it happened only it was nothing like my imagination had painted. What a tiny room! I thought to myself. It could not have measure more than eight feet across and ten from side to side. There was C.S. Lewis's photograph hanging on the wall near the little fireplace. No crackling cheery fire to greet us; just a soggy day in Oxford.

"Well since it's 1:00 already, let's order something to eat," I suggested to my companions. I scanned the menu and nothing looked familiar. We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto, I mused.

Something caught my eye. Ah, mushrooms. In honor of J.R.R. Tolkien, whose portrait also graced the room, I thought I would order the mushroom pepper pot.

"What in the world is that?" asked my friend. "I haven't a clue but let's be adventurous." So for the love of hobbits and Tolkien, I boldly ordered as if I had been going to the pub for years and nodding to bring on my favorite feast.

"We've got to drink a pint. Here we are in jolly ole England and it would be a crime to come so far and neglect them, " I looked at Tolkien and Lewis solemnly. Their portraits stared back unsmilingly or did my imagination detect a slight gleam of approval in their eyes?

The food was sizzling and the dark beer's foam was just about to trickle down the sides when we clinked our glasses. "To Tolkien and Lewis!"

We sat a whole hour there listening to tour groups come and go; shyly taking photos and politely excusing themselves.

"We'll be late if we don't take off to Magdalen College now and we may not have time to see The Kilns," I said. "The rain has tapered off now," my friend observed.

I gave one last glance of farewell as I left the room. How I wish I had been there on those cozy nights when Lewis, Tolkien and the other Inklings were reading their stories without the slightest notion that their works would become famous. They were like boys sharing their fairy stories: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings.

The pathos of the moment was that I was fifty years too late to experience their camaraderie. Just a tiny insignificant room in a small pub in an English city but in it were minds that had shaped our world.

I sighed and a feeling of satisfaction laced with longing rose inside me. At long last a cherished dream had been fulfilled. I came, I saw and was conquered.