Originally uploaded by PackRatty McRatterson
The Blue Moon Coffee Company in Neenah was the first place I ever felt "at home". In high school, I traveled there at least one weekend a month, once I was old enough to drive. I'd sit in the green chair if it was open, and I'd write and write and write until familiar faces started filling the room. For me, it was such an important part of the atmosphere. The atmosphere in that place was like a living thing.
Slowly, it got creakier and more stained (in those days, you could still smoke in coffee houses). The scratchy 1950's upholstery became more and more threadbare. The buttons got really loose. Two years in a coffee house had really taken their toll on that poor chair.
Sensing it was on its last legs, I sketched out the pattern of its fabric, planning to get that as my first tattoo. I snipped off a loose button when nobody was looking so I could carry a bit of it with me. I came back a month later, and the chair was gone. A friend had cut off another button for me when he saw the chair sticking out of the dumpster, so I had a pair.
They still smell like stale clove cigarettes.
:) That is where I played my first EVER show! :) I know exactly what you mean!
ReplyDeleteThat was where I played my first show, too. As you know, I did *not* get the chair fabric tattoo.
ReplyDelete