Murph's Study Hall - the end of an era....

I was recently informed that my college bar – Murph’s Study Hall was sold…and there would no longer be a Murph’s

Everyone - please bow your heads for a moment of silence…

I have so many feelings about this – I know I know it is just a bar – but it played a very important role in my college years…

See Murph’s is your typical college bar…within easy walking distance of the campus, small, compact, dingy but so much freakin FUN…pool tables, beer for less than a buck and young {sometimes hot} college boys to make out with.

Being the person that I am I had a fake ID…so I was able to enjoy Mr. Murphy’s establishment pretty much since I arrived on campus…Oh back then it was even smaller and dingier – you had to be really friendly in the women’s room because it was a pair of swinging doors with two toilets…so if you didn’t know the person beside you when you walked in – you sure knew her when you walked out…

Between my Freshman and Sophomore years Mr. Murphy added on to his fine establishment – enlarging the women’s room (THANK YOU) and adding a whole back bar/dance area.

Oh how I loved Murphs…I spent the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year on campus taking summer classes and try as I might to find a job…I didn’t – it was the best summer ever – spent the mornings going to class and the afternoons and evenings usally biding time at Murphs…I got quite proficient in playing pool and I learned how to throw a mean set of darts (only occasionally did one wind up in the ceiling) . It was during this summer that Mr. Murphy realized my ID was well…not ME…but he let me in anyhow and started calling me Virginia (since that is where my ID was issued)…when campus got back into full swing that fall I still got into Murphs…he did look out for me and occasionally I got turned away with a “not tonight Virginia” when the Liquor Control Board was on the prowl…

Murphs gave me my best times…hanging out with my sorority sisters, drinking, laughing, gossiping…and one or two of my worst times {Sorry for puking behind the big screen TV…}…It was a place where relationships formed and relationships died…where rumors were started and lies confronted…it was a place of happy and of sad…I honestly think I cherish my diploma from Murphs more than the one from my college…While Murphs may be no more I still have my Murph's Study Hall T-shirt, a few commemorative St. Patty’s Day glasses and one itchy scratchy dog that Third Child and I named after our beloved college bar….

When I was a senior I was my senior class secretary – which isn’t want it sounds like – basically I was the keg girl during our senior class happy hours at Murphs…oh the power you weld when you control the flow of the beer…One Friday when I was setting up Mrs. Murphy came to me – in her hand she held a license…she asked me if I knew the person on the license – to my surprise it was one of my sorority sisters…turns out her license had been stuck in one of the women’s toilet for a few weeks – the toilet would get stopped up – they would plunge it and it would work again…over and over they did this for a few weeks before getting a plumber in…the problem – Kathy’s license…EWWWWW….the really EWWW part is she continued to use it after it had been fished out…I don’t know about you but I would not have TOUCHED anything that had been on the inside of bar toilet…much less put it in my wallet and lug around with me.

While Murphs holds a lot of fun times for me – it holds a few bittersweet ones as well…the one that sticks out most in my mind – doesn’t involve drinking or gossiping or even making out with a hot boy…during one of the Senior Class Happy Hours I spent an hour chatting with a friend – his name was Joe Podlucky – we had had some classes together and some mutual friends…we worked at the same mall and would occasionally stop by each others place of business to say Hi…that Friday evening in between dispensing beer for a quarter a cup to our fellow seniors we talked about graduating and where our lives were headed…how we were both scared yet excited to see what the future held…it was good conversation…on Monday I had to work – during a break I swung by his workplace but he wasn’t around…I thought to myself “I’ll catch up with him later”…that night he was shot and killed while in his car at another local bar…TO THIS DAY I have this picture of him sitting in the corner of the back bar…sipping on a beer and looking forward to what the future was going to hold for him…RIP Joe….

And to Murph’s thanks for the memories – I shall cherish them all…good, bad and downright ugly…