I told the lady (Scorpio) from Dona Anita’s place that I’d include the restaurant here.
The food was good, but the Scorpio was better. We sure do love our little Scorpio folks. Thomas joined us for dinner, not unusual. I know that he has, like, a Ph.D. In chemical engineering. Or chemistry. Or something like that. And I know he worked the West Texas oil fields, back in the day. And black, he’s black. Not that it matters, but I was just curious.
Over dinner, I nudged his story-telling around to his days in West Texas. About 40 years ago, exactly, and while there weren’t really segregated bathrooms anymore, there were certainly places he couldn’t go.
“The Pussy Cat A Go Go,” and I’m sure I’m spelling his words wrong, but, “either they didn’t like the clothes I was wearing, or I needed a suit, and I came back in a suit, but it was the wrong time. Never got in that one bar.”
He yarned on, and included a technical definition about what he was doing with the oil wells at the time. More stories about cultural diversity — or lack thereof — in West Texas, at a time when the times were a changin’. He started to do the math, and it had been forty years. 1967. He’s got nascent dreads, shot through with gray, a trim goatee, again, speckled with gray. He’s jolly and merry, and I’ve known him for quite a few years. His stories get better.
I had a pepper stew, and the Scorpio waitress warned me that it was hot. As I left, she asked how it was. I had to point out it wasn’t that hot. She promised to make it with habeneros next time.
The restaurant itself is located on Florida Street, just half a block east of Big Spring, which, to me, is really the old Rankin highway. The food — while they eschew conventional taxonomy — is universally good. Local color, it’s important while traveling.
And Scorpio — love them little critters.
Laeti edimus qui nos subigant!
