A Question Of Color — And A Cheap Date

With Spring in the air, Ginny decided to buy new towels for our bathroom.

That’s understandable; our present towels fray around the edges.

With Spring in the air, various retail merchants decided to sell new towels.

In case you didn’t know it, towels are strips of cloth. Preferably rough, absorbent cloth used to dry off wet human bodies. If a towel is on the floor soggy for some reason, you can always grab a pillowcase or a tee-shirt out of the cupboard; it will serve the same purpose.

Wet bodies are not all that picky.

Dogs just shake water off.

No big deal.

Except that Ginny wanted towels to match the color of our bathroom walls, which I think are either green or blue. No, they’re green… I’m sure they are green.

Just a second. I’ll go check.

Yep. They are green.

So Ginny browses through a bunch of store catalogues to pick out her towels — green ones.

Now, these are real stores, not some vendor stand at a flea market.

But do these reputable merchants tell you what color towels they sell?

Not a chance.

At least they don’t tell me what color the towels are.

One store tries to pedal towels that are — and I quote from the catalog — Celadon, Atlantic, Plum, Cornsilk, Ink, Slate, Dusty, Sienna, Spice, Poppy, Mocha, or Clay.

Another store offers towels colored: Ballet, Iris, Cornflower, Sachet, or Mellon.

That’s nice but what color are the towels?

Still another sells towels that are advertised as being: Limo, Coastal, Sterling, Sandstone, Sage, Reseda, Aragon, Willow, Partridge, Haze, Imperial, Smoked, or Ketchup.

Oh, Ketchup! I know ketchup. Those would be red. Wouldn’t they?

Not according to the catalogue photo. If I’m looking at the right one, it’s brown.

Another store sells towels colored — again, I quote — Atlas, Royal, Tavira, Medina, Giverny, Satire or Siren.

Does anyone on earth know what color these towels are?

Phooey of it!

Since green towels apparently no longer exist, I plan to keep drying off on my tee-shirt.

It’s gray.

Used to be white, but now it’s gray.

Definitely gray.

On a happier note, for some reason Sunday afternoon Ginny and I got to talking about that time way back in the Dark Ages of almost 40 years ago when we first began dating. This was up in the Washington, D.C. area.

Just for kicks, we decided to look on-line to see if any of the places where we dated still exist.

Some do.

For instance, 40 years ago we played spelunker in Camel’s Den, Crabtree, and Sand Cave. Yes, in those days we were slim enough and spry enough to explore the caves of Maryland.

I really knew how to show a girl a good time.

I also took her to the Library Of Congress and to Rock Creek Park.

You’ll notice that none of those places I took her cost a penny to go to (I was master of the cheap date); but we did date at a few restaurants. So yesterday we Google searched to see if any of those restaurants are still around after 40 years.

One place we remember fondly was sold to become an off track betting pallor.

Another place we tried to look up but we neither one could remember what the name of the place was or how to spell it. Something Italian, I think..

But, Hey, we found one.

Once I took her to Mrs. K’s Toll House in Silver Spring, Maryland. It snowed like a moose that night. Most roads were closed. When we got to Mrs. K’s we turned out to be the only couple in the place. We sat at a window table overlooking a snow-covered garden fountain. A fireplace blazed nearby. The waitresses, with no other customers to serve, decorated the lovely room for Christmas. Beauty and I held hands across the table and her eyes glistened as she gazed at me. Ginny wore her royal blue dress (memorably form-fitting) with the matching dangly blue-crystal earrings. I wore a suit. I ordered roast duck in orange sauce with some French name. We can’t remember what she ordered.

On-line we found that Mrs. K’s Toll House still exists. The website address is http://www.mrsks.com/

The pictures on that site show the garden in Spring.

But we remember winter. The fire. Christmas decorations. Deep snow. Deep blue dress. Deeper blue, glistening, adoring eyes.

Another place we remember going to for one date was O’Donnell’s Seafood Restaurant at it’s original location at 13^th & F Streets where it stood for over 150 years. I don’t know how it is now, but back when Beauty and I were dating, this was where the President, cabinet members, senators, and Supreme Court Justices went for seafood.

It was not a place for a cheap date!

We went there once.

I wanted to impress her.

O’Donnell’s still exists and still serves the rum buns we remember from our single visit 40 years ago. But the restaurant is now in a new location. Their web address is http://www.odonnellsrestaurants.com/site/index.html .

As we indulged ourselves in these happy memories, Ginny remarked, “Yes, when we were dating, you took me to O’Donnell’s. Once we were married, it’s been MacDonald’s ever since”.

Maybe so.

But across any table, even now, we still hold hands.

And her blue eyes still glisten.