Dinner Roll

'Dined' out again, so I'm sorta on a roll, <g>. This time we drove, Wife and Self, till we got there, improvised, with no plan whatsoever, alone, just us two, a date, whooppee.

Eventually we arrived at Johnny Rocket's a 1940's style 'Soda Fountain' on Melrose in a sort of artist's colony, West LA, or only slightly East of West LA.  Sure had changed since I lived near there thirty years ago. Purely by accident we parked on Gardner Street a two block walk to the restaurant on Melrose. (Melrose houses The Groundlings the comedy improvizational theater and school.) I suddenly remembered I lived on Gardner Street when I first moved from NYC to LA so very long ago. Elia Kazan was preparing to shoot a movie with a promising lineup but which turned sour from unknown (to me) causes. I still have his reply to my written pleas for a job, any job. He hinted, I believe, that the enterprise was doomed, even though his producer was the same man who produced, under a different name, On The Waterfront.  When we drove by to see exactly where I had lived, we found cheaply built apartment buildings where there had previously been a single storey residence and garden. Odd how unwelcome was any kind of change, as if retrieved recollections must be false, when they may be no such thing.

Johnny Rocket served us 40's style milkshakes and half and half french fries, and onion rings and hamburgers made from almost two inch high ground thick red meat.  I played the Bee Gees with a nickel slid into old style page flipper selection gizmo I haven't seen for decades. I stared at, and speculated about, the young people at the curved counter, and standing around waiting, I guess, for a seat. On the white walls were two large advertising posters depicting 1940s military uniformed women smiling.  I noticed, and was very moved by, how at loose ends the young people, especially the single women, looked as they looked and tried to hide that they were studying the lay of the land. With the advantage of age I saw the loneliness, and remembered how terrified I would have been of them when I was much younger with not a clue how to approach them. For me, being young was a drag, an infirmity it took too long to recover from. 

Next time we go to Johnny Rockets we'll take the kids, and then go see The Groundlings where the chief Koan is, "Do not deny!"

Yes, please, do not deny, give it a try, you might be surprised.

Barry