The Abbey Bar was kitty corner from Abbot Pennings High School, and for most of my high school years, the drinking age in Wisconsin was 18. Need I say more?
Of course it was somewhat of a ritual for the seniors, as they turned 18, to walk across the street after school for a beer. As the year went on, more and more seniors would become legal and the bar would get more and more full at 3pm each day. Pity the poor senior whose birthday was in June.
Alas, Wisconsin changed the drinking age to 19 in July of 1984, so my senior class missed out on this tradition, but I do find in amusing that in the 1984 yearbook, the Key Club posed outside the bar for our group photo. I'm not sure you could sneak that photo into many high school yearbooks these days!
The Abbey Bar (with significant upgrades) still operates on the same spot. This classic facade is gone of course, which is why I'm happy to provide a photo here. It's a classier outfit now (no shag carpet on the walls anymore) so stop by and check it out when you're in town.
The other story about after school is how you were going to get home. You could certainly take the school bus, but it didn't show up until school had been out for nearly an hour. Your other options were to spend $0.35 on the city bus that came a little bit earlier or hitchhike! The Squires had to be the last cohort of high school kids in the US that were still hitchhiking! There were usually 20 or so guys on the road in front of Pennings with their thumbs out. It doesn't sound very safe, but typically somebody's mom or an alumni would stop by and pickup a carload of us.
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