Noisy restaurants and Christmas lights

One of the joys of my work with TCU Press was the friendships I developed with the authors I worked with. Today I had lunch with one of those authors, Chloe Webb, whose Legacy of the Sacred Harp, was published several years ago. It’s about shape note singing, dinner on the grounds, and a lot of Chloe’s own life. Chloe is, I suspect, older than I am (good heavens!) but she’s game, gets around with a cane, still drives, and wasn’t intimidated by my narrow driveway with its jog. (She did have some difficulty with it when she actually tried to back out the gate.) So there we were—her with a cane, me on my walker—the lame leading the halt.

Chloe’s husband has health problems that keep him from going out much, so she said she wanted to try one of the newer restaurants she’d never been to. We went to one of my favorites, a restaurant where in pleasant weather the outdoor dining opportunities far outweigh the choice of indoors, but today it was chilly. We both ordered what they call their deconstructed tuna salad—a wonderful plate of traditional tuna salad, fresh fruit slice, tomato slices and a slice of cheese. We loved it.

But I have a new crusade—against noisy restaurants. I tried with and without the hearing aids and neither way worked. I was a bust as a conversationalist because I couldn’t hear her. Even with the aids on the restaurant setting, the background noise was deafening. It disappeared without them, but so did Chloe’s rather soft voice. Every surface in that place is reflective—floor, ceiling, bartop, tabletops. I don’t think people were talking extra loud, and there wasn’t that big a crowd. But it was unbearable.

So here’s a word to restaurants: I know it’s possible to soften sound without compromising atmosphere. Whether it matters to you or not, you’ll lose my business if you can’t lower the noise level, and I will urge my friends to follow me. We—ahem—elderly folks have money and time to dine out; if you want our business, cut down on the noise. If you want to focus only on the younger crowd, blast away. I won’t be there.

My Christmas lights are gone, although the tree, its lights unplugged, sits in the middle of my coffee table. But the lights still shine on the fence and deck railings, and I’ve kept the screen of tiny green sparkles. I think it will brighten the evenings as we move into the dark days of late January and February. Remember, my friends, spring is not far away!