A Night Of Living Dangerously

An Afternoon With Marisa At Vanderbilt

Lunch At The Greenery With Granny

We are up at 6:15 and the cafe is not open until 7:00, bummer, so we are making coffee in our crappy coffee machine in our room and hope to be off to Orange Beach, Alabama by 8:30 at the latest.  

Sunday, we left Kentucky around 9:00, in no hurry to get to Vanderbilt because we were meeting our granddaughter Marisa just before noon, giving her the morning to sleep in or get some work done. She was up at 7:30 by the way to do laundry.  We had an easy two-hour ride, and we were earlier than we expected and drove around to see the campus, stopping at the Campus Bookstore before parking near Marisa's dorm, West Hall,  one of a number of buildings surrounding green at least 100 yards long filled with trees.  

Marisa's Dormitory

Humanities Building

We were able to see her dorm room, a cozy, long but narrow room and meet her roommate Laila from Boston. We walked around the campus before deciding to walk uptown to a vegetarian restaurant Marisa likes called The Greenery. It was a neat place with numerous salad offerings or you could make your own. I ordered the Southern Cobb. As you order, another server steps up and puts together your salad which you then pay for and pick up. It's a busy place and the six salad makers keep busy.  After lunch, we again walked around the campus as Marisa showed us her classrooms, biology, chemistry, Spanish, and Writing, all in striking architectural buildings. The campus, the buildings, the trees, the grounds make it an exceptional environment for learning.  We ended the day at Starbucks, again just off-campus, and bid farewell to Marisa for a week around 3:15. 

Strolling Along The Green With My Granddaughter

We drove to our hotel, a Courtyard Marriott, about a mile from campus, checked in, and relaxed in our room watching football, deciding when to head our to Honky Tonk Central, the happening street in Nashville. We ordered a Lyft at 5:45 and were on Broadway along with the throngs by 6:00.  We wanted to have dinner at the bar at Merchants, a restaurant and bar we liked from the last time we were here.  As luck would have it, we found the last two seats at the bar. 

At Merchants Restaurant

We ordered beer and sandwiches, nothing too fancy, and enjoyed the ambiance of a busy, crowded bar.  An older couple sat down next to us with their daughter in from Atlanta.  The wife was a Nashville native, knew the area since the 70's and we found out that her husband, Clyde Simmons, played shortstop for the Jamestown Expos back in 1979 with a stint with the Cubs the following year,  He loved Jamestown, had nothing but good things to say about it.

Jamestown Expos shortstop Clyde Simmons And Family

After dinner, we took a walk along the streets, crowded with football fans, locals, families, college kids, people from all over the US, and, unfortunately, panhandlers, beggars and the homeless in various stages of distress. It reminded me of what a street in New Orleans might look like during Mardi Gras. We ended up at Honky Tonk Central, a three story bar, and loved it. 

Money In His Pocket

People were packed lin n like sardines around the long bar, in front of the stage, up on the balcony, listening to the singer/entertainer who sang, played the guitar, piano and harmonica, along with his band. He played for a couple hours straight with no intermission and was amazing, singing every sort of genre but mostly country music, songs which everyone seemed to know. Evie, fortunately, found seats near the stage and we sipped nine-dollar beers for a couple of hours.  Evie struck up a conversation with a couple of guys, one who was waiting to meet up with his 31-year-old son who he said was trouble.  We later met the son, both seemed fine but by the end of our stay, the son had to be led away by bouncers for starting a fight.  

A Wild Night Of Music And Dance

The place oozed sexuality, the women patrons, gyrating on the bar along with the lead singer,  couples bumping and grinding to the music. The whole scene, the streets, the beggars, the bars reminded me of an orgy, of the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. No one wore a mask, no fear of Covid, and we were right in there with all of them, alas.  It made me laugh when I thought of the irony of my wearing a mask in yoga class.

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Our Sexy Bar Tender

Twice the music stopped, once when the owner of the bar presented a five thousand dollar check to the singer for his performance, then led the crowd in a chant of "Let's Go Brandon." The leader also was given three hundred bucks to play a single song and off and on through the night, dollars bills would rain down on the stage and bar from the balcony.  Quite a scene and what a contrast to our afternoon at Vanderbilt with Marisa where every time we walked into a building, we had to wear a mask, 

Once the son had to be led away to another part of the bar, we decided it was time to leave and we ordered a Lyft with some trouble but ended up getting home around 9:30, ready for bed and watching some football.