On "Even Crazy Old Barmaids Need Love" by Peter Meinke (3465 words) ***

This tale from Meinke's The Piano Tuner collection recounts the lives of several patrons at a bar--and most specifically, an unlikely pair, an old barmaid and an accidental mid-aged actor. What I found most interesting about this story, however, is the account of how the bar changes under new ownership and how the owner makes that happen; it seemed the account of someone who had reconfigured a bar himself. Read the story here at the Orlando Sentinel.