The bartender didn't open door to his piano bar until 5 PM exactly. I
managed to appeal to him for early admittance to catch sunset, with
help from a woman who had been waiting longer. The sun is a streak of
gold outlining ridge bounding Traverse City to the west. To the east,
we have moraine ridges of Mission Peninsula and towards the far shore
of East Bay, the ridge of the Holiday Hills. Imagine yourself in an
imaginary Los Angeles. All is easy to view from the Tenth Floor.
Because the bartender didn't allow us in until 5, he hasn't reached
all of his 25 guests with cocktails. I ordered a Two Hearted and paid
right away. I actually admire his professionalism. It's not the first time I've written on Top of the Park, although the
last time, the Cherry County Playhouse still mounted a summer season.
In 1984, 26 years ago, I popped up here and wrote upon college ruled
spiral bound paper, and if I'm lucky my words moulder in a landfill.
That's why I fling my journals into cyberspace for all to see now.
Keep your rowboat in the universe, to explain with a Chinese proverb. I remember the waitress who waited upon me here, her only customer
during that day. The tenth floor is now divided into a bar and a
banquet hall, but I seem to remember no sight line interruption then.
She had time to be drawn into conversation, but we didn't have
Facebook or cellphones or even email in those days. She popped up on
the night club scene, Bar Hola at the Holiday Inn, Sleders and the
Loading Dock. One evening, I saw her around Clinch Park Zoo, and she
had to tell me her news. At the end of season, Labor Day Weekend, she
was leaving for Colorado to wait tables and quitting school for a
while. I wonder how that worked out. I can remember her height and the
color of her short hair, but not her name. I ate out often, and I had set up a phone at the apartment I was
renting for 25 dollars a month. So I left my phone number with the
waitress's tip and my roomies would take messages. That worked three
different times, but for the most part, the return phone call was
always picked up by a Traverse City mother. Usually, you hung out with
the people who worked with you or the people who lived with you or the
people you saw out and about. Traverse City once had cruising around
the downtown blocks, and I remember getting into a Mustang driven by
a co-worker, a kitchen cook named Sue Wolff and her friend who called
me Shakespeare, all fairly innocent fun. We drove around, drove around
and then they dropped me off. It's a fairly beautiful scene up here with table candles and the
alpenglow providing the only illumination. The bartender is
maintaining thirty people enjoying a stream of martinis and cocktails,
shaking his right wrist for all he's worth. The West Bay is still very
much a presence, a field of dark blue bounded on the left by Leelanau
Peninsula shoreline lights.
managed to appeal to him for early admittance to catch sunset, with
help from a woman who had been waiting longer. The sun is a streak of
gold outlining ridge bounding Traverse City to the west. To the east,
we have moraine ridges of Mission Peninsula and towards the far shore
of East Bay, the ridge of the Holiday Hills. Imagine yourself in an
imaginary Los Angeles. All is easy to view from the Tenth Floor.
Because the bartender didn't allow us in until 5, he hasn't reached
all of his 25 guests with cocktails. I ordered a Two Hearted and paid
right away. I actually admire his professionalism. It's not the first time I've written on Top of the Park, although the
last time, the Cherry County Playhouse still mounted a summer season.
In 1984, 26 years ago, I popped up here and wrote upon college ruled
spiral bound paper, and if I'm lucky my words moulder in a landfill.
That's why I fling my journals into cyberspace for all to see now.
Keep your rowboat in the universe, to explain with a Chinese proverb. I remember the waitress who waited upon me here, her only customer
during that day. The tenth floor is now divided into a bar and a
banquet hall, but I seem to remember no sight line interruption then.
She had time to be drawn into conversation, but we didn't have
Facebook or cellphones or even email in those days. She popped up on
the night club scene, Bar Hola at the Holiday Inn, Sleders and the
Loading Dock. One evening, I saw her around Clinch Park Zoo, and she
had to tell me her news. At the end of season, Labor Day Weekend, she
was leaving for Colorado to wait tables and quitting school for a
while. I wonder how that worked out. I can remember her height and the
color of her short hair, but not her name. I ate out often, and I had set up a phone at the apartment I was
renting for 25 dollars a month. So I left my phone number with the
waitress's tip and my roomies would take messages. That worked three
different times, but for the most part, the return phone call was
always picked up by a Traverse City mother. Usually, you hung out with
the people who worked with you or the people who lived with you or the
people you saw out and about. Traverse City once had cruising around
the downtown blocks, and I remember getting into a Mustang driven by
a co-worker, a kitchen cook named Sue Wolff and her friend who called
me Shakespeare, all fairly innocent fun. We drove around, drove around
and then they dropped me off. It's a fairly beautiful scene up here with table candles and the
alpenglow providing the only illumination. The bartender is
maintaining thirty people enjoying a stream of martinis and cocktails,
shaking his right wrist for all he's worth. The West Bay is still very
much a presence, a field of dark blue bounded on the left by Leelanau
Peninsula shoreline lights.
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