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The Doors were not a hippy band.

For me, they were always a bar band.

One of my earliest experiences in a bar was when I was 8 years old the summer of 1971. This would have been around August of that year. Down the street from where I lived at the time, there was this dive of a bar in East Boston that did take-out pizza as well as a small dining area for "Italian food" in which their signature dish was "(pasta) shells and meatballs."

My father would send me down there from time to time to get a pizza for dinner when he (or my mother) was too drunk to cook a proper meal.

So on this particular day, I was sent to this place to get a pizza to bring home. Now the dining room was not yet open at this hour of the day so you just had this darkened bar with a jukebox. In those days, you would place your take-out order and sit at the bar until it was ready. Because I was just a kid, the bartender, a very obese man that had to weigh about 400 pounds, would slide a Coke over to me while I waited. I was considered a bit of a regular.

Now the bar, it resembled the cover of the Led Zeppelin "In Through The Out Door" album that would come out a few years later. You had a couple of local drunks at the bar nursing their drink of choice with a "loose" woman or two sitting at the ends of the bar.

So on this particular August 1971 afternoon, we were coming out of a heatwave and as I walked over there, you could see the dark skies in the west and the ominous rumbles of thunder - which usually break a heat wave in the Boston area.

I remember placing my order for a couple of large cheese pizzas and then sitting at the bar while the obese barman slid me a free Coca-Cola.

One of the drunks had put a few dimes (or quarters) into the jukebox and I was treated to the music of the day. A little Johnny Cash, some Allman Brothers and then "Riders of The Storm" by The Doors started to play.

It was a very surreal scene as the thunderstorm that was approaching as I was walking over there was now over us and so you heard the actual thunder from outside combining with the thunder on the record, as we sat in the bar.

During the peak of the thunderstorm (and the song), the fat bartender was leaning against the bar (with a drink of his own) and just staring at me in the most lascivious manner. As an 8-year old, I was just spooked by the whole thing.

The lights inside the place flickered a bit but never went completely off.

Next thing I remember, I had the pizzas slid over to me from the kitchen and I hightailed it out of there while that Doors song was still playing.

I got outside just as the heavy rain was ending and the skies were brightening quickly as I made my way back to my house.

Anyway, that is my memory of "Riders On The Storm" by The Doors. Hearing that song even now, 50 years later, reminds me of that day.