A Spring State of Mine

So every Spring and Summer for the past few years, my little Metropolis puts on this shindig called “Downtown After Dinner”.  The title is a little presumptuous, because it implies that you ate somewhere in the vicinity of downtown and then came down in the town to hang out. Vicinity and a propensity to fall for slogans apparently equals bullion round these here parts.  Whether you ate downtown, took a cab down there after eating somewhere else, or stumbled into what you thought was a mime-less street fair, it really isn’t anything more than going downtown after dinner.  By that I mean, it is the same old downtown that you’re use to; but a certain section has been blocked off for traffic, plus there are minstrels and street hawkers playing tunes and hawking their county fair-esque wares.

The stores that normally give it up around blue hair buffet hours – 5:00ish – stay open to assure everyone that they are still downtown, even after they’ve had dinner.  I really have no clue if the townies are more likely to purchase antiques, baseball cards and camping equipment after having a meal within in the general vicinity of their discretionary income outlet.  Yet somehow, someone has convinced store owners that people eating near their store equates to purchasing goods that apparently aren’t as desirable during the week or normal bidness hours.  I have to admit, the whole thing is kinda neat.  Walking down the street makes you feel like a sober drunk.  You can actually get a grip on what Otis must have felt like when he walked himself to jail in Mayberry.  There are a bunch of people that you know enjoying the suspension of traffic and jaywalking laws who come up to you, and make it known how happy they are to be conversatin’ in the middle of a local thoroughfare – during what would be normal ball scalding hours, but the City Commission determined that autos should be banned from such festivities.  Putting the kibosh on the ingress and egress of autos was simpler than a boner after a nude camper is hit by a stiff wind.  You can’t have autos flying towards the riverfront while a respectable amount of fools are wandering around seeing the sights and sounds that they can see during normal business hours; then you’d just end up with a bunch of busted guitars, spilled hand-made lemonades, and tire marks on newly established sidewalk tables.

Let’s talk about those sidewalk tables, shall some of us?  There has been a bigger battle over restaraunts selling swill at sidewalk tables during downtown after dinner than there was over what type of mace and swords would best “convert” the non-believers during the Crusades.  Do you capitalize the “the” before the “the” Crusades?  Can I get a ruling on that?  Is there instant replay on here?  Can I throw a red flag, and someone who understands grammar AND history will come up in the comments sections and tell me whether I’m white or wong?  But as someone was saying, some members of the City Commission (which is like less fancy and cool group of people with power comparable to anything you’ve seen in Godfather or a mob documentary) decided that floggin’ potato squeezins on the sidewalk while innocent civilians were downtown after dinner would be dangerous – and might make the holy rollers go somewhere else after dinner, and avoid downtown altogether.  Seriously, if these joints are selling swill on the sidewalk to people dining before or after downtown has eaten dinner, how much more dangerous is it going to be?  Grizzly bear with me if you will.  Let’s say you’ve just finished eating a caesar salad with yardbird, or some form of grilled bovine, and you want a post caloric intake adult beverage. You order up a drink or swill that, like Charlie Sheen’s blood and urine, has some alcohol content.  You swill it down like Lestat doing shots at Red Cross’s blood bank, and then…NOTHING!  You pay your goddamn tab like everybody else.

Pretend you’re drunker than me in college, law school, or three days ago.  You get up from your table and stumble off into downtown like a young Forrest Gump with leg braces that hadn’t been properly oiled. Since no auto traffic is allowed, you’re not going to be run over unless it is by some jerk on one of those Transitions - you know, the ones who ride around like they are changing the world by driving a podium with wheels.  They are like a mobile phallic symbol.  To make it worse, some idiot opened a store downtown that sells and rents them – ordinarily they are reserved for volunteer cops who ride them around like wanna-be police officers.  Sure, there’s a good chance your drunk ass may bump into a few people, and your curse words are going to be louder than a close-talker with a bullhorn, but so what?  When you go out into public, you freely, knowingly and intelligently consent to the possibility that some jerk may be jerkin’ out while you’re around.  That’s the whole point of anywhere being “public”.  If you don’t like the possiblity of encountering a different viewpoint, direction, interpretation or level of intoxication, you should stay home more often than a recluse with agoraphobia.