Slainte, friends at the Harp & Thistle

ST. PETE BEACH -- I'm not Irish. I don't drink.

Yet here I am at the Harp & Thistle Pub, pondering this place's magnetism. Before me is my drink of choice, Evansville Sunset. It's my favorite Harp concoction -- orange and cranberry juice over ice -- and the Packers make me feel welcome just by obliging me when I order one by the hokey name I gave it.

Let alone that the Harp is steps away from the Gulf of Mexico and I've named my drink after an Indiana sunset on the Ohio River. Part of the Harp's charm is that customers make the rules, and the Packers go along for the ride.

"People have their own traditions here," says Pat Packer, wearing an Irish green dress and a subdued -- for her -- wide-brimmed straw hat.

These days, the final ones for the Harp & Thistle after 18 years at the foot of Corey Avenue, the customers are more nostalgic than Pat and her daughter, Jennifer. It's been not quite a year since Bob Packer died of Lou Gehrig's disease, and his wife and daughter have made some big decisions.

They sold the bar. They sold the Harp & Thistle business, which will likely be relocated somewhere in St. Pete Beach. They even sold Pat's house, and she moved in with Jennifer.

Combining two households into one meant putting some of Pat's hats in consignment. "This is about new beginnings," she said.

The Harp & Thistle loyal are having a harder time letting go.

Loyals like "Paddleball" Billy Hannon from Michigan. He got his name by -- you guessed it -- beating his shamrock-shaped paddleball in time with the Harp's famous live music.

And Bobby "Smitty" Smith of York Beach, Maine. He came to St. Pete Beach for a five-day vacation 10 years ago, found the Harp, and stayed for 10 weeks.

"The Harp, it just is," said Smitty. "There's no other place like it."

I count myself among the loyal, though I never did earn myself a nickname. How disappointing.

I met Pat two days after Bob died. I was writing a story about the man who ran the business end of the Harp while Pat, more bubbly and flamboyant, greeted customers with a warmness that made occasional visitors feel like regulars.

Weeks later I brought some out-of-town friends to the Harp. I had gotten to know Pat from the arm's-length perspective of a reporter writing about a subject, but she greeted me with the familiarity of an old friend.

My friends thought teetotaling me had become a barfly. They were genuinely impressed.

The Harp had no live music that night, so Pat invited my friends to play guitar on her stage. One of them was good enough to be invited back as regular Monday night entertainment.

Within weeks I was joining my friend on the Harp stage, plucking the banjo I'm still trying to learn to play. What a thrill, to bring music to a place where ashtrays have cracked in half from people energetically tapping them along.

Reporters who live in the small towns they cover often build walls between themselves and their communities, cautious against forming alliances or getting too close. Me, I don't even vote in the elections I cover.

At the Harp, I let my guard down. This summer, when I heard the Harp & Thistle had sold, I told my editors I couldn't write the story. I cared too much.

Besides, it was officially a conflict of interest: I had made some tips playing banjo.

Well, a few tips.

Actually, hardly any at all. (Did I mention I'm still learning?)

Some of the loyal tried staking their claims at the Harp like cousins eyeing Grandma's china.

My buddy Rob Miller, a computer programmer from Treasure Island who keeps his own cushion behind the bar to soften the nights he spends on Harp bar stools, wants a piece of the men's room wallpaper.

I like Rob because when he's not there, he lets me borrow his cushion.

"You know how it is," he told me the other night. "You come here, and you just feel at home."

He turned away, watching the band Guinness play the Harp stage.

Rob, are you getting misty?

"No."

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