The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson [83]
I was so taken with all the souvenirs that I began to fill my arms with stuff, but then I noticed that the store was full of Do Not Touch signs and on the counter by the cash register had been taped a notice that said ‘Do Not Lean on Glass – If You Break, Cost to You Is $50.’ What a jerky thing to say on a sign. How could you expect kids to come into a place full of wonderful things like this and not touch them? This so elevated my hackles that I deposited my intended purchases on the counter and told the girl I didn’t want them after all. This was perhaps just as well because I’m not altogether sure that my wife would have wanted St Louis Cardinals pillowcases.
My ticket to the Hall of Fame included admission to a place on the edge of town called the Farmers Museum, where a couple of dozen old buildings – a schoolhouse, a tavern, a church and the like – have been preserved on a big site. It was about as exciting as it sounds, but having bought the ticket I felt obliged to go and have a look at it. If nothing else, the walk through the afternoon sunshine was pleasant. But I was relieved to get back in the car and hit the road again. It was after four by the time I left town. I drove on across New York State for several hours, through the Susquehanna Valley, which was very fetching, especially at this time of day and year in the soft light of an autumn afternoon: watermelon-shaped hills, golden trees, slumbering towns. To make up for my long day in Cooperstown, I drove later than usual, and it was after nine by the time I stopped at a motel on the outskirts of Elmira.
I went straight out for dinner, but almost every place I approached was closed, and I ended up eating in a restaurant attached to a bowling alley – in clear violation of Bryson’s third rule of dining in a strange town. Generally, I don’t believe in doing things on principle – it’s kind of a principle of mine – but I do have six rules of public dining to which I try to adhere. They are:
Never eat in a restaurant that displays photographs of the food it serves. (But if you do, never believe the photographs.)
Never eat in a restaurant with flock wallpaper.
Never eat in a restaurant attached to a bowling alley.
Never eat in a restaurant where you can hear what they are saying in the kitchen.
Never eat in a restaurant that has live entertainers with any of the following words in their titles: Hank, Rhythm, Swinger, Trio, Combo, Hawaiian, Polka.
Never eat in a restaurant that has blood-stains on the walls.
In the event, the bowling-alley restaurant proved quite acceptable. Through the wall I could hear the muffled rumblings of falling bowling-pins and the sounds of Elmira’s hairdressers and grease monkeys having a happy night out. I was the only customer in the restaurant. In fact, I was quite clearly the only thing standing between the waitresses and their going home. As I waited for my food, they cleared away the other tables, removed the ashtrays, sugar-bowls and table-cloths, so that after a while I found myself dining alone in a large room, with a white tablecloth and flickering candle in a little red bowl, amid a sea of barren formica table-tops.
The waitresses stood against the wall and watched me chew my food. After a while they started whispering and tittering, still watching me as they did so, which frankly I found a trifle unsettling. I may only have imagined it, but I also had the distinct impression that someone was little by little turning a dimmer