Bear’s and Mama Bear’s are cool, but nothing was ever as cool as Funky’s and Fred’s.

That eyeball wallpaper. The chastity belts hanging from the ceiling. The weird unisex bathroom in the middle of the dining area, with doors that did not lock. (The sign SAID “Pee at your own risk.”)

The wild psychedelic paint.

Everything glowed in the dark.

Half a strom was seventy-five cents.

The whole place smelled like incense and grass.

But then, everything did back then.

Oh, and their pizza was incomparably good, too.

Even so, even so, when Pagliai’s opened up downtown, a goodly number of us switched loyalties.

Pagliai’s was the first restaurant in Bloomington to have free Coke refills.

Now they all do (except the Irish Lion), but it wasn’t always so.

Sometimes I dream about Funky’s and Fred’s, but in my dream I get free diet coke refills. Then I wake up all disoriented, because there was no such thing as diet Coke back then.

Maybe the concept of chastity belts and endless drink refills just didn’t match up.

I mean, if you drank all that diet coke, you’d have to constantly unlock the thing, which would mean it’d be handier to just have your own key, which would pretty much shoot the whole purpose of wearing the belt, now wouldn’t it.

That’s my theory anyway.