Thursday, January 1, 2009

Is this the New Year, or the same old...

Like every blogger on earth, I made the resolution to post every day of the New Year-I give it 'till Sunday, but whatever...
As my oldest daughter and I drove down College Ave on the way to Kroger this evening, we looked out at downtown Decatur, and enjoyed the orange-gold light that coated everything in a liquid gold glow, and I was reminded of my time working as a cashier at the Grill (a fifties-style diner) in Athens, GA.
Ah, the Grill. Truly a legend in a town steeped in traditions, a way station for every disgruntled punk and stoner that ever wandered through that town. Like everyone who ever worked there it was my home and the embodiment of everything evil. I met a lot of wonderful people and not a few worthless shit bags.
My weekday cashier shift started at 5:30-which, to a college student, seemed like early afternoon, but is really more like early evening. The beginning of the night was pretty slow, so I spent a lot of time at the cashier station at the front of the restaurant, looking out the window. And on many evenings the sun would come through the window, bathing the front of the Grill in that particular golden light which always reminds me of California. Something about the black and white retro tile, the pink and blue neon, and the orange highlighted chrome made me sad and nostalgic for California-not the Beverly Hills 90210 or Real Housewives of Orange County California, but Brian Wilson's Beach Boys California-a land of beaches and palm trees and endless summers. As I stood there wistfully absorbing the sunlight, and the jukebox played some classic 50's tune, I honestly felt as if I would get off my shift later and meet my blond, eternally-pony tailed girlfriend at the beach. And we would sit under the palm trees in her liquid-red 1955 Karmann Ghia, listening to the ocean surf-sounds waft in on a balmy, body-temperature breeze. We would talk and laugh and smile and be unhurried in the languid way that only two teenagers in love can be. Somehow, this nostalgia began for me at the Grill years ago, and whenever I see that certain golden evening light those emotions come flooding back.
But, see, here's the thing.
I've only been to California a few times, I never had a girlfriend with a Karmann Ghia, and I only know of the 1950s through songs that tell of an America that was gone by the time my parents were teenagers. How did standing there in that faux-retro diner in Athens, GA in the mid 1990s give me a such an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and longing for something that I never experienced? Is there a word for such a thing?
Although I'm highly sceptical at best, it makes me wonder about past lives. I suppose its possible.(?).
All in all though, not a bad ending to the first day of the New Year.
I mean, it WAS a beautiful evening...

1 comment:

Melissa said...

you made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside