Tales from Behind the Grocery Store

About the Book

Since recorded time, fermented beverages have played a part in societies’ evolution, not always in the most positive ways. In our current relatively structured community of people, the neighborhood tavern has been a place of refuge, retreat, meeting, conviviality, arguments, agreements, competition and sometimes just plain fun.

Few places of communal gathering have the only criteria of age to be a member in good standing, or the undefined boorish behavior to be ostracized. Individual characters are quickly recognized, categorized, and relegated to their rightful place in the pecking order of the local watering hole.

The author has had, for better or worse, the opportunity to drop in to the local pubs, pool halls, lounges and bars the world over, and encountered and unbelievable number of characters. Recalling many of the more memorable ones, he has created fictional characters in imagined conversations in his favorite spot and generated entertaining short stories, sometimes with a moral, sometimes just for a chuckle.

About the Author

Art Wagner is a retired Coast Guard pilot who has had the good luck to have an aviation career that spanned nearly 50 years. In retirement, he has authored his memoirs (Aloft, A Life Well Spent) and works as a proposal specialist consultant and system troubleshooter. In that time, more than a few memorable characters have crossed his path, and this series of short stories describes many of them. Not being a political naïf, he could not resist inserting a few stories depicting our current society.