Extra Friendly

We took Peggi’s mom back to our old neighborhood last night. We had dinner at the Park Avenue Pub. Hadn’t eaten there in thirty years or so and it was pretty much the same. Ramon Santiago wasn’t there though and the bar seemed pretty quiet but it was a Sunday night.

Lisa Bunz, the owner and hostess, took us to a warm booth in the front so we could watch the sidewalk traffic. I made eye contact with an old guy in a wheelchair on the way to our table and he reached out his hand to shake so I did. I was thinking “this place is extra friendly” but I’m not sure he was all there. He was sitting with an Audrey Hepurn/Geraldine Chaplin like women in a floppy hat who was either his much younger wife or daughter and there was another couple at their table. The guy had a bald head with big scab on the top and his ears were huge. She seemed to be doing most of the talking for the old man but at the end of their meal the other couple thanked him for inviting them. It was kind of like that scene in “Five Easy Pieces” where the Jack Nicholson character tries talking honestly to his father after the old man had a stroke.

We asked Lisa how things were on the Avenue these days and she lamented the fact that it was younger scene. I just finished a new batch of crime guys and I was thinking how nice it would be to paint old people like this guy and the cast of characters out at Peggi’s mom’s place. I would want to photograph them and work in my basement from the photos. But how do you go about that whole thing? Would any old people want to be painted for some reason. I could have a show in their dining room. I’m gonna have to think about this for a while.

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