From the Past Comes the Present

Being in a car for umpteen hours with two of your best friends from college is a bit like finding yourself in a time machine with a broken destination guage (like when Doc's car was zapped by lightening in Back to the Future II and he ended up in 1885...). Okay, maybe not the best description, but you'll get my point very soon.

When last we saw our heroes (okay, that would be me, J.Vlo, and Panda for those who missed the last installment), we were staring incredulously out the left side of the car, through obscenely tinted windows, at a site we never thought we'd see again.

Dalt's.

The quick version: Dalt's is/was a restaurant that was once in existence across this great land we call America. There was one down the street from where I grew up and every so often my folks would take the family there and I would enjoy the best macaroni and cheese God ever set down on this planet (it's actually a four cheese penne dish with baked bread crumbs on top that might as well be ambrosia), not to mention a glass of Coke accompanied by a small mini-pitcher of grenadine. Seriously, McDonald's and their Happy Meals be damned, nothing thrilled this kid more than a trip to Dalt's.

Years later, while living with Panda in Los Angeles, we found us a Dalt's that happily resided next to the fortress of filmmaking known as Warner Bros. Studios and the pasta was just as amazing. Hours we would spend there, watching for random celebrities or just enjoying the food and time with our friends. So you can imagine our heartbreak when both restaurants closed down without warning.

And now perhaps you understand why we squealed with glee at the seeming mirage before us: Dalt's, beckoning to us like the Sirens (not that Sirens, Binion). I quickly pulled into the left turn lane.

And then, just seconds later, I was very quickly introduced to the impatience of the Nashville driver. Let me be clear, I am sure many of those in Nashville are sweet, kind, considerate drivers who want nothing more than to co-exist in peace on our roadways; however, there's another breed in Nashville (or, the suburbs of said metropolis) and the populace needs to be warned.

We're sitting at a red light waiting for the green arrow to usher us through a small commerical intersection. Dalt's awaits us with open arms on the left and the O'Charley's that we've already forgotten sits miffed on the right.

The arrow app --- HONK, blares the horn of the car behind us.

Seriously, I don't waste time at lights. My foot is already off the brake and waiting for the go for launch from my brain so that when a green light flashes, I'm already moving. This time was no different. The green arrow on the traffic light probably hadn't even reached peak luminesence and I was already pushing on the gas when the frackin' local behind me laid on the horn. Perhaps he was just moving faster than us as he approached the intersection and as it would appear to an object moving at the speed of light looking at something moving decidedly slower, we seemed to be standing still, frozen in time, unmoving. I assure you, dear readers, we were not.

J.Vlo later said I handled the situation with a dignity that she wouldn't have under the same circumstances. Mostly I just complained about the rudeness of the car behind us which tailed us through the intersection and zoomed around and away from us as I turned (more slowly than needed) into the Dalt's parking lot. It was only after that when I realized that people in Nashville drive like people in L.A. But I digress. The point is, we found Dalt's and were going to relive the greatness that is this restuarant.

So we ate. And Dalt's was pretty good. Not great. Just good. And it made me think about how we remember things and whether the best memories we have happened in the really awesome way we remember, or if the good things in our lives are subconciously embelished and age like a fine wine in the cellars of our synapses. I was reminded of how things change and how when you revisit the moments and places of your youth, the world there seems smaller and sometimes less polished than your might remember.

So here we are, the three of us, on this road trip. And I ask myself as J.Vlo takes the wheel and steers us towards Memphis and onto Texarkana, are we trying to relive some time in our collective past when we were young and carefree and roadtrips were a spontaneous weekend staple?

No, we're not. The memories I have with these guys are fantastic, embellished or not, and I cherish them all. But this trip isn't about recapturing. It's about capturing. Creating. Living in the present and experiencing the next week without cares or worries or plans or anything that usually runs our lives.

As we continued to chase the sun to the horizon and watched the stars peek out from above, I smiled and knew that great adventures were in store for us.

Little did I know that Texarkana would bring one monster of a tale.

To be continued...