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Back in San Francisco. Woopty-do. Less than a day back in town and I’m already smoking more and eating junk food again.

I may never again travel over the Christmas holidays. I really shouldn’t complain. I didn’t get stranded under eighteen inches of snow in Chicago like so many people did. I didn’t get stuck in Las Vegas without benefit of a hotel room like my roomie almost did. I didn’t have to rent a car and drive from Memphis like another friend did.

Actually, I had a great time at home in the land of Mom, Dad, and assorted friends and relatives. Details and some really bitchin’ pictures coming soon.

But I hate traveling at Christmas all the same. There were lines. There were delayed flights. There was ice. There were 13 degree nights. And I didn’t find myself in a single redeneck love nest.

Thanks to everyone who sent Christmas cards, email, etc. while I was gone. And thanks in advance to everyone who will continue to wait patiently while I catch up on answering said email. Give me a couple of days.

Last Day

Had the traditional late night “last night at home” talk with Dad last night. I miss having my parents nearby. The older I get, the more I find that I really like them (not that I doubted it before). I think it’s time to move back to someplace which is at least a little closer to home. Not Greensboro, probably not even North Carolina, but maybe Richmond or Atlanta, or Baltimore, or Philadelphia. Who knows? This brings up the same old “what am I going to do with my life” anxiety which I’m not in the mood to deal with right now.

Everything just seems so much saner away from San Francisco. The stress level is so much lower. People live in actual houses, with big rooms and porches and heat that works. No one feels trapped at home by the fact that leaving the house means giving up your parking space. Gas is cheaper. Cigarettes are cheaper. Food is cheaper (and better). Rent is cheaper. Everything is cheaper.

I’m sitting in Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. I spent an hour checking in and almost had a heart attack running to the gate with five minutes to spare, only to find my flight delayed 90 minutes. Now they’ve added another half hour on top of that.

I just spent $3.00 and ended up with five sticks of gum, a newspaper, and a cheap Bic pen. Then I shelled out $2.50 for a Coke at the bar so could smoke. I hate airports. I hate flying.

I’m going home to San Francisco. For a while, anyway…

Winston-Salem

 

I stayed an extra day because the flights were tight and because there were one or two more relatives to visit. Instead of the relatives, though, we took the back road to Winston-Salem (NC’s own Route 66) to see some urban decay and a mall.

 

Mall first. We shopped. We looked around. I watched more scary redneck kids. Security stopped me (with Mom and Dad) and told me I was not allowed to videotape in the mall. I told the rent-a-cop that was fine because I was through anyway. She didn’t look pleased. I didn’t look like I cared. We left. See the “concept shots” which so threatened the sanctity of the mall above.

Then we headed downtown to the factory district. This was the area where R.J. Reynolds used to make Winstons and Salems and Camels, until they moved to a new plant on the edge of town. The area is threatening to develop into a high-tech office and loft condo area, but a major fire a few months ago delayed some of the plans.

 

Parts of this area resemble Detroit. Lots of abandoned and boarded-up buildings are surrounded by large open areas, the result of unsuccessful urban renewal in the 1960s and 1970s. If I lived in Winston-Salem, this would be my neighborhood.

Winston-Salem is kind of an interesting place. As one might guess, it was formed when the towns of Winston and Salem merged. Until the 1920s, it was North Carolina’s largest city, and it still retains an older and more urban feel than Greensboro, even though Greensboro is now a much larger city.

Drag and Nostalgia

Lunch today with Mom at Libby Hill. ‘Twas a nice thing eating the real southern version of fried fish. It’s one of the things I miss most. We hit the branch on Summitt Avenue, which used to be a Hot Shoppes drive-in (the chain from DC which evolved into Marriott Corporation).

 

Tonight, I did the nightlife thing with Jeff again. We met at Babylon, fled the perky Swing Night crowd as quickly as we could, and headed for College Hill Sundries and New York Pizza, two of my old UNCG hangouts. Then it was off to the Palms, where Jeff was working, and the ever-wondrous Marilyn Rivers was on stage.

 

Every time I come home, I get progressively more and more nostalgic. In my warm and comfy bed, with all that free Mom and Dad food, I start thinking “Greensboro is not such a bad place”. Eventually, I have a revelation and come back to my senses. This revelation usually happens at the Palms. Tonight was that night. All of a sudden the “I gotta get the hell out of here” light started flashing. I fled.

Another day and half and I’d flee town altogether.

iMac Watch ’99

This afternoon, I watched a lot of TV with the folks. We were waiting for Steve Jobs to spill the beans about the new iMacs, since my mom was planning to buy one. We must have looked like an odd neo-techno version of the Waltons, huddled around the radio waiting for FDR to give a Fireside Chat. Or at least it seemed that way to me at the time.

After the announcement, I took pictures of abandoned motels. Why should this be any different from any other road trip, after all?

  

Big Band Night

Why is the Winston-Salem paper so very much better than the Greensboro paper, even though Greensboro’s the bigger city? I guess it’s sort of like San Jose’s paper being so much better than either of San Francisco’s, even though SF is the “dominant” city.

I visited some friends at Greensboro’s brand new Kinko’s today. I saw Anne and Jeana and Tim, all of whom I knew from my years working at the old Greensboro store. And I saw Maggie, who I know from San Francisco (long story there…) Greensboro’s now a “two ways to office” town. Imagine.

Tonight, I hit “Big Band Night” at a local club with Mom and Dad. I was a little apprehensive about this, but it turned out to be fairly interesting. Apparently, it happens the first Monday of every month. There’s an orchestra and food. The crowd was pretty much 60-plus, but they were a pretty lively bunch. It was most definitely not a depressing “old folks night”.

Of course, most people who know me well are aware that, despite my rock and roll exterior, I have a certain affinity for this music, and I didn’t hear a single song I didn’t recognize. It was sort of nice, too, talking with people outside my normal age bracket, and watching my aunt and her new beau take to the floor. Mom and Dad were out there a few times too.

I was impressed with one couple in particular. The wife had emphysema and carried a rolling oxygen cannister. I imagine that even walking does not come easy to this lady, but she loves to dance, and two or three times, she rolled that tank right out on the floor and did all she could. You have to admire that.

Stopped by the Border’s on High Point Road on the way home. It’s kinda cruisy there late in the evening…

The Cafeteria

I’ve eaten at an awful lot of cafeterias on this trip. Cafeterias are a phenomenon relatively unfamiliar outside the south, it seems. They’re far too inexpensive and unpretentious ever to really succeed in California, even though SF had a big one in years past (now replaced, appropriately enough, by a Gap and an Urban Outfitters, two peas in a pod).

In southern cities, whole cultures develop around them. Older couples (“empty nesters”) often seem to take most of their meals there, and actually know many of the other patrons. Families congregate there, as well as college students looking for a cheap feed. The food is good and cheap, the vegetables are fresh and often make a complete meal in themselves, and there’s no tipping. Someone should do a study of Southern cafeteria culture.

I continued the tradition of New Year’s Eve at home with Mom and Dad and was spared hearing “1999” even once.

Myrtle Beach

 

We left really early this morning for a day trip to Myrtle Beach, on “Future Interstate 73”, which is basically the same collection of back roads (most of them two-lane) I used to take during that unfortunate summer of 1986 when I lived there.

This was my first trip back to the Grand Strand since about 1987. It’s changed, and it’s really creepy to think I lived in this unnatural, surreal environment, even if only for three or four months. I guess it will always hold memories for me as the first place I lived away from home. My old 2-bedroom townhouse with dishwaher is still there, renting for $525 now. The surf/skate shop I managed has been bulldozed.

I have a long histoy with Myrtle Beach. In addition to living there, it was also the first place I went for a booze-soaked road trip without Mom and Dad in 1981. The next year on my post-graduation trip, it became the site where I came out to a guy I had a major crush on.

 

The “strip” and the area around the Pavilion seem pretty intact in all their seedy charms, although the crowds were nowhere to be seen, given that it was a foggy December day with a temperature of about 45F (7C). The Gay Dolphin Gift Cove (no…not THAT kind of “gay”…) was open and fully stocked with T-shirts, license plates, and postcards datng to the mid 1970s. A few of the arcades were even open.

 

Aside from the summer mix of high school kids, where rednecks, preppies, and stoners co-exist with relative ease, Myrtle Beach now also attracts the older crowd with golf, outlet stores, and lots of strip malls. There’s even a Hard Rock Cafe and a Planet Hollywood. And, of course, a Kinko’s. I was really a little creeped out by the theme malls. And I’ve decided that outlet malls are really ugly and completely without any bargains to speak of. I don’t get it.

It’s gotten pretty intense since I left. We hit traffic jams. In December. Odd…

 

We left Myrtle Beach about 5. By 6:30, we’d hit the magical place known as South of the Border. This place is classic roadside, opened in the early 1950s near Dillon SC, just south of the North Carolina border with a semi-Mexican theme. It’s known worldwide for its billboards and their bad puns (“Pedro’s Weather Forecast: Chili Today, Hot Tamale”).

The place just gets bigger and bigger. There are motels, coffee shops, and various kitsch emporiums. This was my first night visit. I’d expected neon, but jeez…

Weekend in Greensboro

I really didn’t do much all weekend other than watch TV and hang out with Mom and Dad. For some reason, I always feel really sleepy and lethargic when I’m at home. Maybe I’m bored, but it’s more likely due to the caffeine deprivation (less Coke, more Sprite and Fresca) and to the fact that I don’t smoke as much. I also feel a little funny not having a car.

Home for the Holidays

I usually fly home on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day because I’m usually flying standby and these two days are usually much easier. Today, alas, it meant standing in line for 45 minutes before I could get near a plane, thanks to all the snow and ice delays over the midwest and northeast for the past few days.

Fortunately, once I actually got on the plane, it was pretty empty, and I was seated next to a cute enough 20-something. He was little nerdly in appearance, but I don’t look on that as a negative. We didn’t really talk; he was reading something and I was reading my Christmas present from Sarah, a book on Sid and Marty Kroft.

The movie sucked. The meal consisted of some glop masquerading as an omelette, All in all, though, not a bad flight. I even had time for a cigarette in Charlotte.

 

Upon arrival in Greensboro, I was met by Mom and Dad and my uncle, and we scurried over to the in progress Christmas dinner at my cousin’s house. I was completely worn out and itching for sleep by the time I got home.