Another
story from the archives, this one written in February of 2009, and
I've left it as if it were today.
Sometimes
in a movie someone will enter an empty room and there will be sounds
from the past – parties or music or children playing. Memories from
things that had occurred in that room come flooding back.
That
is what happened in real life today when we walked into, of all
places, the Mexican restaurant near our house. Even though it is
Saturday today, Mike was working all day – first going to Johns
Creek and the lab to analyze samples he had collected yesterday, and
then Mike had to drive to Lilburn to pick up an instrument he's going
to need for a job in North Georgia tomorrow – which means he will
be working all dang weekend. So it was not too surprising when he got
home this afternoon that Mike offered to take me out for a beer.
We
ran a couple of errands first, and then we stopped at the Mexican
restaurant – which I am going to call Muy Grande. We had not been
to Muy Grande in years, ever since that second cockroach incident –
but I happened to mention that I had a 20% off coupon, and so there
we went!
Since
it was late afternoon, the place was near empty. If it had been full
of socializing people and bustling waitstaff, I don't think I would
have experienced what I did. But as it was, nostalgia came over me in
waves.
The
girls and I had come to Muy Grande so many times over the years. The
first time was on a Saturday night during the World Series one
October. The restaurant was packed. There was a band playing, and the
tvs in each corner and over the bar were showing the baseball game
and the volume was louder than the band. It was so noisy we couldn't
talk, and we decided maybe we shouldn't go back there again.
But
we did.
Today
the waitress sat Mike and me at the same booth that the girls and I
sat at one early week-night evening directly across from the platform
where the band plays. And that time with the girls, a guitar player
arrived and set up all his stuff and tuned and started to sing
Margaritaville. Sarah and Amanda and I then had a new family
expression “sooner or later, the live entertainment will sing
Margaritaville.” We started a new tradition after that –
we can't leave until we hear Margaritaville – and we always did!
It
is also the same booth we sat at one time with my friend Angela and
her kids, Ashley and David. Ashley had ordered pizza which she
saw on the menu and assumed was going to be a Mexican-style pizza.
Haven't we all wondered about the pizza listed on the kids' menu
section at the Mexican restaurants? When it arrived, the pizza was
Italian and looked like something microwaved from the frozen section
of the Publix which is in the same plaza. Angela had the pizza sent
back, and Ashley ordered something else.
And
the booth behind the one we were sitting in today is where Mike and I
sat one afternoon and watched as a cockroach nonchalantly crawled up
the wall behind the band platform. It looked right at home next to
the mandolin hanging there. There was no band playing at the time –
so a waiter and a waitress tried to also look nonchalant as
they used broom handles to try and get the bug off of the wall.
The
bug won.
On
the other side of the restaurant is a long narrow room with booths on
both sides and one row of tables down the middle. The girls and I
came in one crowded Friday night and were squeezed into one of the
booths in that area. The tables down the middle were lined up end to
end, and one party was taking up all of them. It was really
noisy that night – but fun to watch. In one of the booths across
from us we recognized a man from church. He later made he was through
the chaos to come over and say hello. Above and beyond the call of
duty!
One
time Eric and his family were in town. And we decided to get take-out
from Muy Grande for dinner. We were going to call-in the order, but
the last time we did that, the order was not understood correctly and
came out all wrong. So Eric and I went to Muy Grande to order the
food in person and wait for it. I pointed to the bench where people
wait for their take-out orders, but Eric asked if I would like to
have a drink at the bar while we waited?
Oh
my gosh! In all the years I had been going to Muy Grande, the bar was
always something other – it would never have occurred to me
to actually sit at the bar. And have a drink! What an absolutely
novel idea! I felt like it was my eighteenth birthday or something. The girls and I have known probably every booth and table in that
restaurant, but that was the first time I sat at the bar!
There
was the time we went to Muy Grande after the first day of school one
year. We sat in a booth and the girls excitedly told the events of
the day. After a while we realized that one of their new teachers was
sitting in the next booth and probably heard everything. And even
though I have in my memory the teacher's profile as she sat there
that day, I do not recall now which teacher she was.
It
was during their high school years that Sarah and Amanda were
vegetarians, and I still coerced them into frequenting Muy Grande.
There is not a whole lot on the menu for vegetarians – and there
were other Mexican restaurants with wider vegetarian selections and
better tasting food that the girls preferred. The good old days of
Muy Grande were waning away.
Then
there was the final outing a couple of years ago when a cockroach was
about eye level with me on the wall of our booth. In a reflex move, I
flicked it. I thought it would be enough of a flick to transport the
bug across the room, but it landed on Sarah's food. She was not
happy.
Today,
our hiatus was over. We sat in Muy Grande, and I looked around. The
long narrow section of the restaurant was empty. The booth where the
teacher sat that day had a family with kids and a baby enjoying each
other's company quietly. The televisions were on CNN. There was no
one at the bar. The bartender was in the kitchen – but eventually
he came out and poured us each a beer. We did not see any
cockroaches, but I have a feeling they were about. A man arrived with
his guitar and got everything set up. The memories swept over me and I
waved my arm about to point out different places in the restaurant
where the old times had been and told Mike all about them. The
feelings were intense – nostalgia for the happy times of an age now
past.
I can point, but I can't grab.
Who
would have thought that our nearby Muy Grande would provide me with
all that on a Saturday afternoon with a 20% off coupon? I was
overwhelmed with the effect the place had on me today. As we were
finishing up, the guitar player sang his first song. It was not
Margaritaville, but Margaritaville was what I heard.
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20151029 Hearing Margaritaville
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