THE RESTAURANT AT THE END THE TIME TUNNEL
THE TOWN TAVERN, NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, CIRCA 1979
Dr. Omed and Jonah of LOVE DURING WARTIME have been friends for a long, long time. We went to the same high school in Bethany, Oklahoma, and we were roommates for a while during our spotty and abortive college careers in Norman, home of Oklahoma University, and Mecca for all true Sooners on Game Day. Jonah celebrated his 50th birthday on Sunday, and I made the Haj down the I-44 turnpike to Oklahoma City to join that celebration. Now, he didn't tell me the party was being held at a house north of OKC almost to Guthrie, down 4 miles of washboard road, but I don't think he knew that himself, and I did manage to find it in spite of the directions. Jonah is a musician, and knows many musicians in the folk music scene in OKC metro area, so almost everyone but me brought a guitar, bass viol, fiddle or mandolin. The host had the drum set. I brought a carved wooden whale, a fossil, a Roman penny from the fourth century A.D., and a framed scissor dance. As you can imagine, the music was almost continuous, and well played. All the people at the party were my age or older—that felt a bit odd—it's been a long time since I was one of the youngest people at a party. I haven't lived in the Oklahoma City area since January of 1986, and almost all of the people there had come in James' life after I left town, and so were strangers to me. I'm not good with names, and remember only two; Pam, who played fiddle; and Mary, who played mandolin. All were good company, none the less.
Several of us got to chatting about past times, Oklahoma City as it used to be. This conversation stayed with me as I drove back up the turnpike to Tulsa later that night. I-44 between Oklahoma City and Tulsa is like a time tunnel. Driving to Oklahoma City takes me back in time. I don't like going to Oklahoma City, the place of my birth, my hometown, because I go back in time and I feel like a ghost. Places go on without you when you leave and you lose them when if you stay gone long enough. The memories of what was play in your head like old newsreels flickering over the shiny new present.
When James and I were roommates in 1979, the nexus, the sine qua non, the Rome to which all roads led, was the Town Tavern. It was on Boyd and Asp, across the street from the University gate, anchoring one of the corners of an area of shops, bars and restaurants itself known as Campus Corner. The Town Tavern was a classic greasy spoon with a twist. It opened 6:30AM and closed at midnight. It was owned by wonderful woman named Bette Maffucci, a patron of not so much the arts as the odd. Poetry readings were held, on Tuesday night I think, and I read my poetry in public for the first time at the Town Tavern (my voice quavering and the typewritten poem shaking like a leaf in my hand). Jonah and I did a show called Jason and Parsifal get the Blues, featuring blues lyrics we had collaborated on. James and I lived about two and a half blocks away. Everyone in the area ate at the Town Tavern, and I think some people ate three meals a day there.
TOWN TAVERN DAILY SPECIALS FLYER, INSIDE FOLD
At the top of the little map, James or I scribbled in directions to our apartment on Duffy St. These flyers, not much bigger a business card when folded, were printed every week. On the outside it had photos taken at the Town Tavern, mostly by a waitress there named Cynthia Zimmerman. At some point she changed the last name to Zimmerwoman. The image at the top of this post is a scan of one of those photos. By the way, the images are large because reducing the size increases the speckling. I have a little collection of Town Tavern flyers, which I store in an old Balkan Sobranie tin (I smoked a little back then, but I was just a tourist).
HERE'S TO YA
P.S. Courtesy of Jonah, for more from the Town Tavern, see Poetry Tonight.
11:55:43 PM 
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