“Remoted” – Day 486 (Thursday)

The sultry weather tonight has me thinking about Thursday nights of summers past, and specifically the stretch around 2008 to 2012 in Clarksville. Back then, Thursday nights were basically my Friday. 

Thursday nights had the monthly First Thursday Art Walk with galleries and shops displaying and selling art from local artists. There was trivia night at the Front Page Deli in downtown Clarksville where the “Knights Who Say Ni” regularly went head to head with a room full of other teams and often won with the reward of a gift certificate to the Deli. Team Ni sometimes had ten people with some real brainiacs when it came to history, literature, art, and pop culture. Despite our size, the weak spot was always sports, and many times the final question would end up being a sports question and we would be be panicking. Or maybe it was just me with the panic.  

Margarita night at Old Chicago, 2010.

Downtown was hopping many Thursday nights, but there was another favorite spot across town on Wilma Rudolph near the mall. Nights on that side of town often included sitting on the patio at Books A Million, then crossing the million lane road to Old Chicago for the patio over there. Thursday nights at Old Chicago featured low priced Margaritas. The Margaritas were okay, but usually my “thing” was the craft beers, and OC had 110 beers. Patio time at OC often included Italian Nachos and conversations about everything including literature, politics, religion, our jobs, our relationships and love lives (or lack thereof). It was something to look forward to. There hasn't been a replacement for the old rhythm of those Thursday nights. 

Tonight, after supper, I sat on my deck reading a book. The weather was beautiful, and after all the recent rain, much appreciated. The book is Late Migrations, by Margaret Renkl, a Tennessee writer, and is filled with vignettes of Southern life. The sunshine and touch of humidity in the air felt similar to some of the summer nights in Tennessee, and the book took me on a little trip back to the place. It wasn’t trivia or conversations with friends like those Thursdays of so long ago, but it was still a pretty good night.