The first thing I noticed about my wife’s choice of venue for her former nursing student-graduates gathering, was how loud and crowded it got after 6:30PM on Friday. First, it was surprising to me that “loud” was something I would be annoyed with. And second, I am also annoyed at thinking it a “crowded” venue which the over-forty crowd seemed to enjoy. While I have been in Navy CPO clubs and Navy aviator officer’s clubs in San Diego, this was my first time in the 94th Aero Squadron, a public restaurant with an a military and aviation theme.
Friday evening commutes in San Diego are typically one that I will stop to have a cigar at a favorite lounge on the way home from work. However, this past Friday, my wife invited me to join her while she waited for a couple nurses to join her at the restaurant and bar that borders Montgomery Field municipal airport. With the tri-winged red airplane out front, reminiscent of the Red Baron, I would not be mocked too much if I asked where was Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel doghouse.
While they reminisced about their time at the school (my wife’s employer) and chatted about kids, medicine and the training, I drifted off. And then I needed a second glass of something to ward off the chill. While San Diego rarely gets weather that has anyone scurrying for jackets, wool caps or gloves, this was one of those cool weeks. Part of this restaurant was open air, looking out on the airfield, which on any other week of the year, would have been very pleasant. The cool evening also spurred me to risk ( my Keto diet regimen) two glasses of merlot.
I thought it was a great place for a happy hour. The service and the appetizers were – on my carefully chosen sampling – quite good. But as the happy hour crowd left and the evening crowd of forty-somethings started partying, the loud music, the cool, and the 8 o’clock hour on Friday night is about all the partying my wife and I can handle.
If a sloth is the new image of cool, then I am still a “party animal”
Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories 