This week's column.
Make no bones about it, I’m in the tank for downtown Greensboro.
Nowhere else is as fluid and funky and intrinsically unpredictable.
You don’t plan downtown. It happens.
What you see there is what you get, and from night to night you never quite know what that’ll be:
Former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Henry Frye salsa dancing at Center City Park.
A sidewalk brass band in ties and church suits playing gospel tunes.
A local businessman hawking downtown tours on Segways.
My new bride and I took in downtown, at her suggestion, two Fridays ago.
We got off to an inauspicious start.
As we walked toward Center City Park, it began to rain. Fortunately, my car was nearby and we took refuge there. And since neither one of us is especially fond of being struck by lightning, we decided to drive to our destination.
Wherever that was.
So, we cruised Elm Street, prowling for a place to eat.
You can’t really appreciate downtown as much from a car. But you’ll see a lot all the same (just be sure not to lose sight of the car in front of you).
Despite the weather, some people were still out and about.
Most didn’t have umbrellas. Few seemed to care.
There were older men and women in shorts.
And younger women in shorter shorts.
Outside of one restaurant a bright-eyed little dog was tethered by a leash to a planter and dutifully waited for his owner.
A group of early arrivals lined up at a nightclub, dressed in tight clothes and painted hair.
We finally settled on a restaurant somewhat removed from the bustle of South Elm Street, the bakery/bistro Ganache on North Elm.
By now, it wasn’t raining; it was pouring.
I fished out a battered old High Point University umbrella from the trunk and we crossed the street.
The hostess smiled apologetically when we asked for a table. “I should warn you, the air conditioning is out,” she said.
Would it be repaired soon? I asked.
Not likely, she replied.
“It’s been out since lunch. He’s been working on it all day.”
My wife and I looked at each other as if we’d been told that the chef had swine flu.
But the hostess had been so nice that it seemed cruel to walk away. So we decided to have a drink there while we planned our next move.
The manager came by to apologize for the heat. Then the bartender. Then a waiter.
The bartender, a man named Damien with shoulder-length hair, took our orders. I can’t remember what music was playing at the time, but it had a beat and he danced along.
He promised to disco dance while mixing my wife’s martini. And he did, spinning once or twice for effect.
We asked about an odd-looking glass sculpture on the counter and he said he didn’t know what it was.
“We wonder what it is, too,” he said. “Looks like someone’s internal organs, doesn’t it?”
Anyway, we ordered appetizers and another round of drinks.
By now, a cool breeze was coming from somewhere. The manager explained that they’d propped open the door to the rooftop dining area for ventilation.
Maybe it was the cocktails, maybe it was the breeze, but I was feeling pretty good at that point. Still, we decided to pursue our main course somewhere else.
The rain had stopped and thin mists of steam rose from the pavement. We walked toward South Elm, where the Second Shift (younger and ready to party) was beginning to arrive.
As we passed the new Center Pointe tower, we noticed a doorman was now on duty. I could have sworn I saw the building’s developer, Roy Carroll, as workers appeared to be arranging office furniture on the second floor.
To our left we could hear music in Festival Park, right next to Cafe Europa.
We’d eat on the patio there, we decided. That way we’d have live music with our meal.
As we got closer, we noticed that the band seemed to be playing nothing but covers of the old ’70s act, America: “Tin Man,” “Sister Golden Hair.”
“By the way, these are not old songs,” one of the performers said. “They’re classics.”
I don’t know if my better half was impressed or creeped out that I knew all the words.
“What’s with this guy?” I wondered if she was thinking. “One minute I discover he’s a closet rap fan, now this?”
Alas, Europa wasn’t serving dinner anymore. It was near 11.
“Told ya we should’ve had shrimp and grits at Ganache,” I huffed to my better half.
So we wound up going to the drive-through at Wendy’s.
It was a perfect night.
Update/correction: I have been told by more than one America fan that the band downtown at Festival Park two Fridays ago wasn't a band doing America covers. It was the real deal. Oops. That certainly explains their playlist.
