gwendolyn bounds

Better Than Google
By Gwendolyn Bounds
1,007 words
21 August 2005
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
9
English
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
Garrison, N.Y. -- RECENTLY, with the still heat of summer pressing firmly across the Hudson River Valley, I contracted my first case of poison ivy -- an ugly, ripe mess that spread up my legs awaking me around midnight in a fit of fierce clawing at my flesh. A relative newcomer to the region by way of Manhattan, I was clueless about cures and so spent the long minutes between 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. hunched over a laptop Googling for help.
The next afternoon, still miserable and desperate for more information -- Steroids or not? Which brand of calamine lotion? -- I did what any clear-thinking person in my tiny hamlet would do: I drove down to Guinan's Pub & Country Store.
It's worth noting that Guinan's (rhymes with diamonds) is not owned by a doctor but rather by a 79-year-old charismatic Irishman named Jim Guinan, who has primarily served cold pints and tea for medicinal comfort through the years. I'd met him while searching for a new place to live after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, temporarily shut my downtown Manhattan apartment. One beer became an afternoon of listening to Jim spin colorful tales; days later, Garrison, just over the Westchester County line in Putnam County, became home.
Jim's place sits snug against the train tracks on Garrison's well-preserved river landing, the last building in a row of colorful homes dating back to the 1800's. The store's front is punctuated by an old metal telephone booth, a listing green mailbox and a weathered stucco facade. In back, almost as an afterthought, sits the pub -- a green-ceilinged, green-walled watering hole with five stools and the best river view of any bar around.
Far more than just a watering hole, however, Guinan's is the Google of this town -- a community hub that gathers, sorts and dispenses the collective knowledge of Garrison's inhabitants. On most days it hums with advice of all sorts, some solicited, some not. Got a broken chainsaw? Someone at the bar surely can diagnose the problem. Want a good recipe for soda bread? When she was alive, Jim's wife, Peg, wouldn't let you leave empty-handed. Still on the fence about the upcoming election? Prepare to get an earful. From directions and stock tips to book recommendations and vintage motorcycle parts, the folks at Guinan's have long routed users to information the way Google might point us to MapQuest, Motley Fool, Amazon or eBay.
In decades past, places like Guinan's were a mainstay of American public life. The mom-and-pop shops dotted Main Streets, accommodating a steady stream of loyal patrons who passed counsel, as well as dollars, over the counter. Here, not through e-mail, was where gossip and salutations were regularly exchanged. Like Google with its sponsored links, these places have offered space for citizens to get their messages front and center -- campaign posters, business cards, concert announcements and real estate fliers.
It's no secret that the Guinan's of the world are at risk, victims of bottom-line-oriented, impersonal mass retailers (imagine asking a Wal-Mart clerk how to fix your brakes) and a get-it-now digital culture that enables us to obtain instant guidance on everything from laying wood floors to planting an herb garden -- all without leaving the house.
Not that such 24/7 convenience doesn't have its benefits, mind you: with Guinan's closed for the night, I was grateful Google was still awake at 12:25 a.m. to dig up a baking soda salve for my poison ivy.
But it wasn't until I walked, slightly bowlegged, into the pub the next day and was greeted instantly by sincere tongue-clucking as well as some inevitable ribbing -- ''Geez kid, did you roll around naked in that stuff?'' -- that I actually started feeling better. There happened to be a nurse drinking beer at the bar who put aside her bottle to examine my legs, assure me I would live and then suggest I get on steroids, and soon. My pal Ed called his mother, a poison ivy veteran, who agreed -- giving a clear consensus I hadn't gotten online.
Soon, another friend named Fitz showed up with an armful of Aveeno oatmeal bath and Ivy-Dry spray lotion. Earlier, I'd left him a message begging for help and he assumed, of course, that Guinan's was where I'd end up. While I sprayed, everyone swapped poison ivy horror stories -- ''Listen, you don't even want to know where I got it'' -- making me suddenly grateful that legs were where my creeping had ended. Sure, I'd also found such tales of woe online, but somehow hearing the laments complete with groans and gesticulations was far more satisfying.
At some point Jim Guinan's son John marched me over to a patch of weeds to make certain I knew what poison ivy was. (He tested me until he was convinced I was clear.) His sister Margaret, a police detective, commanded I ''stop scratching'' and then pulled up a chair beside me to ensure compliance. Meantime, the pub's congregation compiled a list of preferred antidote suggestions using algorithms far simpler than Google's to justify their results -- ''Hey, it worked for me.''
Research completed, Ed bought me a cold beer, and my girlfriend, Kathryn, went to the drugstore while I drank it. When she returned half an hour later, the congregation's prescriptions in hand, I was seated at the bar, legs stretched out, blissfully distracted by a roomful of people doing their best to make me laugh and forget as the hot sun mercifully slipped behind the hills of West Point.
Google was good. Guinan's was better.

Gwendolyn Bounds is the author of ''Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, A Town and the Search for What Matters Most.''