Word: tropicalism
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...stepped off a ship in the Panamanian town of Colón, the tropics got Max Bilgray, a Chicago barkeep done out of a living by the Volstead Act. That was 35 years ago, and Bilgray never even tried to get away. He became, instead, the best-known saloonkeeper in Caribbean latitudes, the boss of Colón's far-famed Tropic Bar and Restaurant. This New Year's, Bilgray's customers will as usual wrap their hands around their holiday glasses of whisky in the bar on the narrow street Colón calls Bottle Alley...
Hard Drinking. Saloonkeeper Bilgray earned his fame by making the Tropic into a serious drinkingman's bar-an honest saloon that scorned chromium, jukeboxes and B-girls. Its sights and sounds were shiny brass, dark wood panels, man-to-man talk and softly whirling fans...
Night and day-for the Tropic closes only on Panama's election days-customers came and went: freighter captains, Navy C.P.O.s, Panama Presidents and judges, pugs, policemen and passing yachtsmen. A young U.S. Army officer named Dwight Eisenhower once cashed his paycheck there; Argentina's exiled ex-President Juan Perón has dropped in lately. In the early '30s Aimee Semple McPherson, the thrice-divorced Foursquare Gospelbinder, visited Belgray's incognito...
Soft Touch. To Isthmians, Bilgray has always been a generous citizen as well as a storied saloonkeeper. He shelled out thousands to the needy, fed the down-and-out with the Tropic's free lunch, paid fares home for the stranded, lent as much as $5,000 on a few moments' notice. Selling out meant burning $40,000 in old chits. But when a sob story sounded phony, vinegary Max Bilgray could also summon a waiter and say coldly: "Bring Mr. Smith the key to the crying room." In a warm salute to Bilgray, President Ricardo ("Dickie") Arias...
...cloud of flies at the antelope who pass disdainfully a few feet from where he lies, knowing that it is the queen who brings home most of the bacon. In fact, the only demonstrable hardship in a lion's life is the rainy season, during which the tropic plains sometimes lie sunk under six inches of water. The lion looks terribly unhappy about it, but he lies down anyway...