The rats were real! Even though I never saw a rat while living at the City Club I knew the little bastards were there. You could feel it.
My Uncle Bob (Bucky's brother) now lives in Florida/North Carolina recalls the rats. His story is too precious to lose forever so I am going to copy his e-mail verbatim recalling an attempt to catch a rat.
You can't dream this stuff up. This is Uncle Bob's story.
"Even though I've been gone many years, your story about your experiences in the basement of the City Club brought back memories as though they happened yesterday. Once you've lived in the City Club it will be part of you forever."
"The bartenders Roy Koebel, Bob Awe, Harry Strobel, and me had seen a rat in the basement several times. This is how I remember the exiting actions that took place. Maybe if someone sat in the furnace room and the lights were turned off for a few moments, there was a chance the rat could be seen and shot when the lights came back on. A hell of an idea. There were no immediate volunteers but Roy said it wouldn't bother him sitting in the dark so our plans were set up. Roy would get comfortable on a box in the furnace room, facing the coal pile with his "22" (I don't remember if he had a gun or not). When he was set, I would go upstairs and turn off the lights for a time. When the time was up I would turn the lights back on and Roy would have a chance to see and kill the rat. It didn't quite work out that way."
"After about ten minutes I turned the lights back ond and waited for the shot. Instead, I heard a lot of hollering and commotion going on downstairs. When I got to the furnace room I found Roy with both his hands clutching his leg and crotch area with death grips. He was helpless in this position. He had a death grip on the rat and his pants leg and since a rat has teeth he wasn't about to let loose to take his pants off. A bite in this location could have been fatal!! I loosened his belt and pants and we carefully removed Roy's pants while Roy kept his security grip on the pants and the rat. Once the pants were off, the death grip on the rat had solved this rat problem. When the lights had come on the rat was near and headed for the nearest hiding place which happened to be Roy's pants leg. Nobody ever volunteered to do this again".
Thank you Robert Jack. Great Story!
Love,
Dad