March 13, 2014.
Dear Diary,
I totally don’t care that Morning Call is leaving its Metairie location, even though I went there with my parents when I was a kid and have memories of the mirrors and the stools and wearing more powdered sugar out of the place than I managed to get onto my doughnuts. I totally don’t care.
The place had only been there since 1974 anyway, and it’s not like that’s a long time as these things are considered. Honestly I feel worse for Fat City, or as I like to call it, “Fat City.” Yes, Diary, I do pronounce the quotes.
There’s a Morning Call at the Casino in City Park; I could walk to it from my house if I had the stamina and didn’t have a car. I love that I can pick up a few orders of beignets and cafés au lait for the family on a weekend. Hell, I may run by before I take my son to school tomorrow. It’s that close, Diary!
Still, I guess if I’m honest, Diary, I do have some fondness for the Fat City location. I remember buying newspapers and magazines at the shop next door when I was a teenager. There may have been other places to find the Village Voice at the time, but I wasn’t aware of them. Then when I went soccer-crazy I could pick up 4-4-2 there and read about European leagues I still couldn’t watch on television.
Also, Diary, Fat City still has Kanno, my favorite sushi restaurant, and Korea House which used to be called Seoul, and BSI Comics is there, and Casablanca too. Perhaps I, too am capable of nostalgia?
I am reminded of a poem, Diary:
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold beignet.
I think that’s how it goes, anyway. Until next time, Diary, Adieu!
