The Tender Bar

The author explains that he had intended to legally change his name before his graduation. His full name, John Joseph Moehringer Junior, had always required some explanation and reminded him of his father. He tried to find suitable new first and last names before Yale printed his official diploma, and he decided on J. R. Maguire. However, he got distracted at a bar and missed the name documentation deadline. After this, he regretfully decided that he “deserved to go through life as J. R. Moehringer” (215).

Moehringer shares the painful memory of discovering Sidney’s repeated cheating, and though he tried to think of solutions, he couldn’t, and they parted ways. His mother attended his graduation, during which he realized that while he and Sidney had tried to act grown up, they were both young, inexperienced, and insecure. He felt that her faults were made out of a sense of panic, and not malice, but he also knew that they would not be together again.

To celebrate his graduation, Moehringer and his mother went to Dickens, now renamed Publicans, for a drink. Moehringer noticed that the men at the bar seemed defensive and skeptical about his graduation from university, and he wondered if they felt alienated by Yale’s upper-class aura.