The Tender Bar

These chapters present the vastly different outcomes of Moehringer’s visits to his mother and father, which further contrast those relationships and help resolve Moehringer’s anxiety about his parents. Moehringer recalls that while visiting his mother, he made an emotional apology to her for being unable to care for her, and she comforted him and assured him it was not his responsibility. Remarkably, despite a lifetime of worry about this matter, this was the first time he expressed his frustration to her. While still preoccupied with the idea of providing for his mother, Moehringer began to accept his limitations.

Moehringer’s honest, cathartic maternal connection sharply contrasts with his visit with his father. As they began spending time together, it was clear that neither Moehringer nor his father could visit without alcohol; the inebriation allowed them both to forget about the many painful failures of Moehringer’s father. Recounting these experiences in the same chapter, the author underscores his parents’ differences and how they encouraged different qualities in him.

Though his visit with his father ended disastrously, a resilient Moehringer was able to take the good from the bad, and instead of being disheartened he writes he felt “independent” and “free” (352). He uses the same language his mother used in Chapter 4 when she, too, realized that her father was not a good person. Mirroring his mother’s experience by repeating her exact words, Moehringer emphasizes his lasting bond with her, and their shared experience at overcoming abusive and negligent fathers to become upright adults.

As he describes in his Epilogue, visiting Manhasset as an adult allowed Moehringer to reflect on his own experiences growing up there. Coming full circle, he now watched another young boy play baseball, looking at the group of men with whom he played with the same childlike ardor that Moehringer once felt himself. Moehringer’s own father died during this time, and when visiting his grave Moehringer let himself have a “last wish” in which he imagined his father apologizing to him and telling him it was normal to feel sadness about one’s father. The author reveals his ongoing grief about his father—a process that he links to his own maturation and masculinity. This somber conclusion emphasizes that his father’s negligence and cruelty caused the author an unresolvable pain, even by his father’s death. Sadly, because of 9/11, Moehringer also comes to the gut-wrenching realization that Manhasset would now be “a town full of fatherless children” (364).

In these chapters, Moehringer also concludes his identity crisis that suspensefully persisted over the last chapters. He gives a brief overview of his career from the 90s to the early 2000s, showing how he was able to become a journalist, just as he had aspired. He also shares that working on the article about his hometown was the first time he experienced “writing as catharsis” and that working in Manhasset made him “dizzy with nostalgia and fatigue” (365). Moehringer’s honest Epilogue further reveals the sorrowful state of his relationship with his father and the events of 9/11; but the Epilogue is also victorious, showing that with resilience, his mother’s encouragement, and his experiences at Publicans, he was able to reach his goals.