No single diners except me and *her*

August 02, 2012

No single diners except me and her

So 'da shaggin waggin is checked and double checked for a week out on the road. If you are anything like me, (and face it, what idiot would be?), you take the Boy Scout motto seriously: Be Prepared. I am headed to Floyd for four days of peace, love and festafarians and a few more days wherever I end up. I ooze on out of the Hook on Monday morning, stopping in Staunton for a little chicken fried steak and spoonbread at the old school Mrs. Rowe's.

Mrs.Rowe's, since 1947, is not for the hipster set.The bustling crowd is Christian, grey haired, and sensibly shod. The joint serves traditional, old time southern food and sweet tea...seemingly nothing organic and definitely no kefir. It is also the ladies lunch scene for this crowd, with few, if any single diners, except me and.... *her*. She is about 29 and seriously lingering over a cup of coffee. I finish the entire front section of the Washington Post and also have map study, while she has third and fourth cups. She is slightly disheveled, maybe even a little dirty, as if she has been camping. She removes some sort of Jacob's coat of many colors, and exposes a tanned, fit and slightly tattooed back. Festafarian?....Appalachian Trail thru hiker? Trust me on this, there is no one else in Mrs. Rowe's with a Jacob's coat of many colors.

FULL DISCLOSURE/POLICY STATEMENT

Because I am 55, divorced by both debutantes and rednecks alike, and travel through mid-life in da shaggin waggin, I am painfully aware of how creepy I appear to women of any age, so I very rarely engage them, for fear of creeping them out or scaring the shit out of them. Just want to avoid entanglements with law enforcement.

Creepy Guy going to a festival

So at this point *her* goes to the bathroom and a working poor retired man comes and cleans her table, although her purse is still there. When she returns, she appears confused, and the man profusely apologizes and offers her another cup of coffee at the swivel chair counter area. She accepts and has cups number five and six, while I study the Floyd Fest musical line-up. Eventually she pays the tab and moseys out to her car, which I can see from the restaurant window IS PARKED RIGHT NEXT TO DA SHAGGIN WAGIN. I read for a while longer and notice that she too is reading in her car, adorned with an "I love mountains" bumper sticker. Ah, a stealth car dweller with no particular place to go..no real pressing engagements, commitments or appointments for the rest of her life, just like me!

I read for another fifteen minutes, and she is still there, now checking her e-mail on some sort of device. She just has to be living in her car. As I enter the parking lot and against my policy of non engagement with people I might scare, I open the side doors of da wagin, adjusting coolers and lanterns, and make some brief small talk with her through her driver's side window. The chit chat goes well, she has a nice laugh and then I say "I love to stealth camp in this van, and it looks like you are stealth camping/ living in your car as well?"

She is a little confused, but rallies, and asks me "Did you say that you think I am living in my car?", sort of chuckling up. I explain that I want to live in a van down by the river full time, forever and always, and, she looks like she is as well...maybe I could write a blog about her story?

She says that, no, actually she was having a little breakfast and coffee, killing some time, while her son had a lacrosse game, and now it was time to pick him up. She went to pick up her son and I went to Rocky Knob National Park, milepost 170 BRP, one of three campers in a 150 site campground and definitely the only shaggin wagin, to await my son Hunter who would arrive three days later. Against my better judgement. Against policy. Hate it when shit like that happens.