So I went to Socal’s tonight.

I did not do my twenties drinking in this town.  Thus, most of our local nightspots are basically terra incognita as far as I am concerned.

I do not think that if I had done my twenties drinking in this town, I would have done it at Socal’s.  There were a lot of wedding rings at this joint.  And a lot of flannel on the gents and skinny jeans on the ladies — which is pretty much par for the course in that particular neighborhood, it is true. 

It’s a good bar.  Relatively cheap beer, shuffleboard, $0.75 pool tables.   Dark paneling.  Really, what more could one want?

That said, I was moved to make two observations after tonight’s visit.  One, that the group I was with provided every single last drop of ethnic heterogeneity in the place.  Which is not really a criticism so much as it is an observation.  The bar _is_, after all, deep in East Sac. 

That said, I am still not at a point where I am not totally creeped out by a roomful of white people.  I hope I never lose that instinct, quite honestly. 

In any event, the second thing is this: the ethnic heterogeneity provided by the group I happened to be with lacked one of the four major food groups.  Which prodded me to realize further that the same could be said of (a) my immediate colleagues at work, (b) my closest friends from graduate school, and (c) the friends from high school with whom I remain in touch.  Da Partner, it should be said, noted as well that the situation at his work is similar.

Is this simply random chance?  Does it not seem a little odd that in California, in this day and age, one could go to a bar and not have at least one Hispanic person?