Dick & Charlie's Tea Room

Prohibition was well before my time, of course, but there are still remnants of it to be found in certain forgotten places. Back in the day when there was a still on every bend of the bayou, Dick and Charlie's Tea Room was the kind of place where if the whiskey didn't get you, the alligators surely would.

Today it's a fishing shack sitting on the edge of the lake, overgrown with Spanish moss and framed by cypress trees, still reachable only by water. It's hand lettered, famous sign is still nailed to a tree:

House Rules

There ain't none.

There never was none.

There ain't gonna be none.

In the bright light of day and some 90 years after prohibition, it's hard to see much except a ramshackle and scarred up old fishing shack on a Texas lake. But as daylight begins to fade and twilight moves in, the view from the opposite shore begins to soften and change. The last rays of sunlight twine and slither through the cypress trees, giving the place an eerie glow and making me think of flappers and rum runners and barrel house piano blues.

Oh, the tales I imagine the old place could tell but the calm water and the alligators keep their secrets.