In the middle of September, my wife and I took a brief trip to the big city. I was attending the Southern Federal Tax Clinic, and she was attending the Lennox Square Mall. We stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead, and we had great fun.
Atlanta is a vibrant, energetic, somewhat frightening city. It seems to reinvent itself every time we come over. The tall buildings spring up (and disappear) like mushrooms in the summer, and the traffic never stops. It is always stimulating to come here, and always a relief to leave again to head back to our sleepy little city in the bend of the Alabama River.
Last night, we walked about four blocks down Piedmont Road to The Buckhead Diner for dinner. It's a little difficult to reconcile a menu where a hot dog costs $9 with the name "Diner", but after all, this is Buckhead. You have to expect to pay a little extra for the prestige of just being here. Our waiter was a very tall, slender young man from Hungary. I got a crick in my neck from craning to look at him while he talked; but if I wasn't watching his mouth, I couldn't understand anything he said. We did have a delicious, though pricey, meal.
I was struck by the number of extremely affluent-looking young people in the restaurant. Nearly every table was filled with young adults of all races and nationalities who give every impression of having all the money in the world. You would be surprised to learn that any of these new nobility had ever done without, or even delayed, any gratification due to the lack of money. I don't know whether that's good or bad; but it is sure different. My childhood was not exactly deprived, but my dad did a pretty good job of convincing me and and my next brother, at least, that we had to be extra careful with our money, and that we couldn't afford to "throw money around" in the manner of some of our contemporaries. By the time the other two brothers reached the age of increased economic activity, at roughly the same time they achieved puberty, they had figured out the old man's scam pretty well, and they spent with relative freedom. Even to this day, I wince at paying the kind of prices we are experiencing in the big city this week, although I know I will be at least partially reimbursed by my employer. In my mind, I can see my dad smiling at that last sentence with the satisfaction of a job well done.
This is our last morning in the big city. We'll head west at lunchtime today. It's been fun, and it will be nice to be home, so I guess that's the best you can ask for. Last night, we had tickets to see the traveling production of Les Miserables at the Fox Theatre. We road the Marta downtown, and ate supper at a Caribbean restaurant right across the street from the Fox. Our seats were not particularly good for the show. They were in the third balcony, so we were just barely in the same zip code with the stage. We had problems understanding the words, not because of the accoustics, which were fine; but because we couldn't see the performers' faces.
The bottom line, though, is that none of that mattered. There is so much intensity in that music that it grabs you by the throat and never lets go. I found myself wishing that there would not be an intermission. I didn't want that relaxation once I got caught up in the show. The high point of the evening for me was Jean Valjean's "Bring Him Home", both for the pathos of the lyrics as well as the marvelous singing. He backed away from the high emotion of the next to last phrase, and just glided effortlessly up to the final note (a high A in the choral arrangement; but maybe a Bb on stage). The huge house was absolutely still as he sustained that note, his voice getting imperceptibly softer and holding the pitch like a laser beam, then the crowd exploded with applause when he finally released. It ranks right up there with hearing Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra doing the Elgar Variations as one of my all-time musical high points.
Thomas R. Borden Montgomery, Alabama October 31, 2003