Yesterday I drove to the Big City to pick up a CD I had ordered; the Broadway cast singing Gershwin's American opera, "Porgy and Bess." I wore out an 8 track tape of Porgy and Bess, then a cassett tape of it, then never could find it again anywhere.

Now there's this wonderful place in the Big City that will order any music you want. It's an artsy fartsy place, like hippies and college kids would like, and after all, the Big City is a two university town. The paper writes it up all the time.
It is half music store with CD's on display, and a section of old vinyl records, and half cafe, where they sell sandwiches and salads and gourmet coffees. The nice people who work there, if you can only hum a bar of some song you're looking for, are so knowledgeable they get in their computer and find that music you've been craving.

So I go in and pick up Porgy and Bess and a few steps away sit down at a table in the cafe section and order a salad. There are two comfortable leather chairs to one side, with an ottoman between. Both chairs were occupied and one guy was doing all the talking. The talker had a German/Austrian accent and was full of himself. He was wearing a French fisherman's hat. Probably a professor at one of the universities, who taught philosophy or some such esoteric subject. He had his bare feet propped up on the ottoman.

There is only about six tables in the cafe part, and from any place there, you had to look at this guy's bare feet. A woman who was leaving touched her cold drink cup to the guy's ear. He looked around startled. The woman says "Put your shoes on. You're not in your living room." He says "Well you could have sat somewhere you couldn't see my feet." She says "There no table here where your feet can't be seen. I'd as soon look at your bare ass as look at your feet." Then she left.

I bet that guy hadn't been scolded since his Mama told him to finish his weiner schnitzel or else. Anyway, I like that place. Can't wait to go back.

susil