KC 909

I remember it as always a part of my existence.  The Club.   As a child there were the Christmas parties, old cartoons on a movie screen.  A visit from Santa.  A pre-made mesh stocking filled with candy and fruit.  It is where my own daughters met Santa for the first time, safely from the arms of Grandpa Snow.  Ashlyn in 1991, Hayley two years later.
The Club.  A long, low building on A Ave and 8th Street.  The front of the building, brick and glass.  The back, buried.  The parking lot nearly to the roof. We always used the back door.  Big, heavy metal door that blocked the outside smells and sounds of Quaker oats and the interstate from the smells and sounds of the KC hall.  The sounds, clinking of glass, the conversations, the occasional " for Christ's Sake!"  the clomp of kids' shoes on the worn wood floor.  But it was the smell of grease and beer and time that marked the KCs .  It is a smell that is not describable, but ask a Snow, a Fagan, a Derby and they will know exactly what I am referring to.
The Club was, aside from the bathrooms and office, five spaces.  The hall, where the tables ran in long rows covered with white paper, metal chairs pushed up against them, six to a side.  There was a stage at the far end.  Steak frys, fish frys, parties, receptions, even weddings took place in this hall.
Running the length of the building at the front was another room that was a wall of windows covered with sheer panels.  Kids wrapped themselves up in those curtains while parents sat at the long tables, or at the bar.  It was ok.  It was somebody's kid and really, no damage was done.  This room was tag, and hot lava and a place for naps.  One wall held row after row of photos.  Old Knights, many in black and white print.  Horned rimmed glasses, flat tops.  If you would have asked me, all head knights looked exactly like Vince Lombardi.
Along the back of the club was the kitchen , the bar and the card room.  I never went into the kitchen as the club was full of men and they seemed to have everything under control.  The bar, that was my favorite.  The regulars sitting around tables, shooting the shit.  I was a Little Snow.  Annie.  Bob's daughter.  I would climb up on the bar stool, order a Shirley Temple, extra cherries.  It was grand.  As I grew, I grew to know more of the people there.  People from my childhood and from my siblings' childhood,  People that knew me forever.  And it was great. 
Next to the bar was the card room.  I don't really know what the room was for, but there were plenty of round tables in there, it was usually a little quieter in there compared to the bar and in later years, there was a pool table.  It was another place to hang out, to chat with the IC people, the KC people, the people of my childhood.  The Fagans and Derbys and Bears.  Others I didn't know by name but knew just the same. 
My sister, Sheila told me that the KCs had been sold.  Another one of those places that belong in my past, but not in my future, I suppose.  So much of Cedar Rapids is like that for me now.  The place of my past.  I never thought I would really move away from there, that I would always feel like it was home, but it is now a city that I hardly recognize.  Sheila didn't know what was going to happen to the building.  Or the guys that call it home on Friday and Saturday nights. 
My sister Crissy was married there, at 909.  My parents celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary there.  I spent nearly every Friday evening of my childhood lents there and many other Fridays, as well.    It is where I developed my love of beer battered fish.  Because of 909, I am a seafood snob.  It is where my mother fiercely defended me as a young mom with a deployed husband.   That particular story goes like this:  Mom was holding Ashlyn, who was somewhere between three and nine months, Danny was deployed and I was at the bar.  When I came back to Mom, she was talking to a lady that I didn't know.  Mom introduced me as Ashlyn's mom. The lady made a comment about my age in relation to me being a mom.  It was the one time I got to see Rita get riled up about my life and she put this lady in her place.  In that way, The Club was my redemption center!
So I file away these memories.  And to The Club, The KCs, 909 or whatever else you may want to call it, I say God bless and thanks.