One and Done

There are advantages to a lunch date, especially when it's a first date.

I'd met a guy at UR's art opening the other night and we'd ended up talking for a bit about the Leon Bibel show we were seeing.

Anytime someone wants to talk the WPA with me, my interest is piqued.

So when he asked for my contact info, I gave him my e-mail and it didn't take long for him to suggest a low-stress date: lunch.

The problem arose when he suggested a chain restaurant.

No can do, I replied, explaining not only why I don't but why no one should, at least no one with the abundance of independent restaurants we have in RVA.

But when I suggested Garnett's instead, he readily agreed.

We arrived at just the right time because before long they got hit by more people than there was room for.

Some drank their beer at the window counter, waiting for a table, while others sat outside patiently.

The music today was oh-so groovy, all very '60s - "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In," "Young Girl," "Dancing in the Moonlight" - and I was getting into it.

Mentioning it, he said he hadn't even noticed it.

It was his first time at Garnett's but before I could make a recommendation, he said he'd already checked Yelp.

"Do you use Yelp? It's so helpful," he said. "I read good things about the German ham sandwich."

No, no I don't ever use Yelp. Never.

Once my farmer's salad and his ham sandwich arrived, we had our most interesting conversation.

As a kid living in North Carolina, he recalled coming into Richmond with his family on the bus, on their way to a relative's house in Maryland.

At the bus station here, they went looking for lunch, some sandwiches or something.

All they found was a dingy lunch counter outside by the bus parking area, but they were hungry so it had to do.

Within moments, a man came over and told them they were at the wrong counter, escorting them inside to the much nicer "whites only" cafe.

Coming out, he spotted the colored water fountain.

This was in the mid '60s, roughly around the time Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were singing "Young Girl."

Whoa.

When our server offered dessert, he had no interest, having already told me that he'd recently eaten a doughnut for the first time in years and it tasted like all fat.

So there was that.

By this time, I was starting to have campers' guilt given all the standing people waiting for seats.

That and I'd done a quick mental tally.  Eats at chains. Trusts Yelp. Oblivious to music. Eschews dessert.

Check, please.

Fortunately, he paid.

You can talk to a man about the WPA, but you can't make him an interesting lunch date.

Even when the moon is in the seventh house.