The next day was a Saturday following the worst birthday ever. The stranger was right. It was a day I'd never forget. Remembering the stranger, I pulled out his card and checked the address. I hadn't notice before, but the address was all the way up in South Lake Tahoe. It was a bit of a drive, but I had nothing better to do, and there was a free lunch at the other end. Why not satisfy my hunger and my curiosity with a drive up into the mountains?

The winding drive into the mountains was very scenic and put me in a much better frame of mind than the drudgery of my work week had. Tahoe is a resort area that straddles the California-Nevada border. It is about a two-hour drive from Eldorado Hills, the Sacramento suburb where I grew up. Joe's was located in a strip mall on the Nevada side on highway 50 the main drag through this area. I got there right at noon.

Joe's was at the end of a strip mall which included a dry cleaner, a nail salon, a FedEx store and so forth. Just like every strip mall everywhere. 

The bar occupied the two units at the one end where the strip made a slight bend into the parking lot that ran along the front between the strip of retail shops and the highway. It was a rather large parking lot the strip shared with an adjacent Safeway supermarket. The bar's units were on either side of the bend. This made for a small nook like area at the bend where there were some tables for outside eating. It also meant the back of the bar would be wider than the front. As I was to find out, this was not the only thing unique about Joe's.

The stranger was waiting for me at a table in the outside eating area. He got up and greeted me and suggested that despite the beautiful day we should go inside so I could get a better feel for the place. 

Inside it was a rather small combination café, cantina and cabaret. It was like my favorite shoes – cozy, cordial, and coffee colored. As you came in, there was a section of bar counter that extended a short distance to the right toward an adjoining room where they had expanded into an area that probably used to be a separate shop. It had its own front door they had blocked off. The main section of the bar counter extended from the front entry to the back of the bar. To the left of the counter, there were small tables all along the windowless wainscoted wall leaving just enough room to walk between the tables and the bar stools to get to the back where there were a couple of booths, restrooms, and a storage area. The walls were decorated with clever sayings like, "Drink coffee, so you can do stupid things even faster and more energetically."

Of course, there were the obligatory television sets above the bar and since it's Nevada the slot machines embedded in the bar's top. In Nevada, there are slot machines everywhere: at the gas stations, the bus stations, the airport, the grocery stores, practically any place people spend time. I can't believe they haven't installed them in my dentist's waiting room yet. I guess they figure no need to add to the pain they are already dispensing.

I could see the kitchen was also at the back to the right of the restrooms and extending behind the bar. The bar area and kitchen were separated by a wall that provided the shelves for all the booze. The wall also had a pass-through for food and a door for access.

We sat down at a table near the back and the stranger asked me, "Well, what do you think of the place?"

"Quaint, I like it," I said looking around. "It's homey."

"You may have noticed the connecting room on the right as we came in is called the 'living room.'  Adds more of that 'homey' feel to the place. It is where the performers play on nights when we have live music and where we host private events from kids' birthdays to bridal showers. We are a very family-oriented establishment. The bridal showers being the exception. They can get really wild," he chuckled.

A waitress brought me a menu, oddly she did not introduce herself. Her name tag said Jolene. She smiled at the stranger and said, "Your usual Joe Bob?" He nodded. She turned to me and asked, "Do you need a minute?"

I turned to the stranger. "You are obviously a regular here, what do you recommend? You said you were buying right?"

"I get the daily special. It changes every day. Everything here is good and yes, your lunch is on the house."

I indicated to the waitress that I would also have the special and oddly this made her grin. She left to put in our order still smiling as if I were missing an inside joke. "So, this is your place?" I concluded from his name, his familiarity with the waitress, and his saying when "we" have live music and that my meal was "on the house."

"It is," he stated somewhat proudly. Then he paused pensively before adding, "at least for a little while longer."

"Are you selling the place?" I asked.

"Are you interested?"

Taken aback by the question, I laughed and answered, "I couldn't afford a place like this. Besides I have no experience or inclination to run a bar."

"Everyone has an inclination to run a bar," he smiled. "The employees here have all the experience that is required. They pretty much run the place. The only experience you'd require is the experience of dealing with people. And the price is more affordable than you can imagine."

I had to admit for a moment the idea did sound appealing. As anything might that broke me out of my hum drum existence. Getting back to reality, I asked myself what this guy's game could possibly be? Did he really bring me up here just to give me a sales pitch for his bar?

"Seriously, did you bring me up here to try and sell me this bar?"

"Seriously, no." His face took on a very somber demeanor. "I brought you up here to give you this bar." He stared at me without flinching.

"Riiight," I stretched out my response pretending what he said wasn't completely crazy and to give myself time to figure out how to extricate myself from this insanity. "Who are you anyway?"

The stranger smiled studying me as he prepared his answer. Finally, he suggested, "I could be your long-lost father dying of cancer, but we both know that is highly unlikely." He paused to gauge my reaction. Then, he added, "I know he left before you were born, leaving you to be raised by your mom and her parents. That jerk could never manage a nice place like this."

Who did this guy think he was summarizing my origins like that? I should probably have been offended by the way he talked about my father, but since I never knew my father, for all I did know he may have been a jerk. No, I wasn't offended, but I was curious. "How do you know so much about me?"

"How do I know about you?" the stranger repeated my question and then responded with a grin and a chuckle, "Maybe because I am you from thirty years in the future come back in time to insure you make the most important decision in your life correctly. I chose to meet you after the accident because it was the one time and place I remembered where I could be certain you would be and be receptive to a crazy suggestion.".

I cocked my head doubtfully. One of us was crazy.

"Or maybe I'm just an eccentric guy who wants to have an impact on someone's life; so, I paid a kid to sideswipe a random stranger who I am trying to convince has met his future self.

"Or maybe I am another manifestation of you from a different branch of the multiverse realities. A manifestation that has hopped over to this reality — again, to insure you make the most important decision in your life correctly. Who knows? This multiverse is a really crazy place.

"Regardless, I don't have much time left. Just enough time to show you the ropes of running this place, hand you over the keys, and after that, I will disappear from your life as mysteriously as I came into it. Are you ready?"

I wasn't. I wasn't buying any of his explanations either and he refused to offer any others. He seemed to really enjoy my befuddlement. Anyway, here I am. Whether you believe in benevolent long-lost relatives, time travel, inter dimensional hopping, or just eccentric benefactors who like to screw with people, you can believe I now own a bar. Joe Bob hung around just long enough for the few months it took to teach me what I needed to know to run the place and to take me to a lawyer where he signed it over to me for a dollar – no strings attached.

Joe Bob was the name the mysterious stranger went by which is convenient since it keeps people from confusing the two of us. Joe Bob has left now. He just didn't come in one day, mysteriously disappearing just as he promised.

Joe Bob and I became really good friends while he was training me, but he never did explain how or why he chose me to give the bar to. If you think you know, I'll bet you a bar and grill you're wrong, but more about this in later tales.