Lynne has collected tins most of her life, including vintage/antique, favorite products, fun ones, pretty ones, etc. I’ve often contributed to her collection, and the “diner” tin above is one I found in my favorite antique mall (it relocated recently, and now it’s not close to me anymore, sad face) and gave her a couple of Christmases back. Diners/restaurants/cafés figure in a lot of our personal history together, and maybe that’s why I used one in a book (unpublished) in the Neverending Saga when two characters just getting to know each other swap stories. This is one The Musician shares.
“I was traveling one time, and I ended up in a town in Tennessee. Really small…. It was a poor town. I had to be there for a while—”
“Were you incarcerated?” she asked.
“It makes me happy that you assume the worst about me. I could have been something noble like a Freedom Rider. I wasn’t. Nor was I in jail. I was visiting a friend. There was a woman there, Maudie, who owned and ran the town’s only café. I usually was there during the day, but one night I went inside and there was a man as old as she was, which is to say in their seventies, sitting on an old kitchen chair in the corner. He had an electric guitar and an amp.
“She sat across the counter from me while we listened to him play. Finally, she said, ‘That man been making love to me with that guitar for more than fifty years now.’ I said, ‘Is he your husband?’ She shook her head and said, ‘Sometimes it’s best to stay friends.’ Then she shrugged and left me with a lot more questions than answers.”
I always think of the US having diners and the UK/Europe having cafes. When there is something called a diner here, it’s usually an ‘American Diner’.
The neverending saga definitely needs to be published. That excerpt had me hooked. Maudie is a wise woman.
I hadn’t thought about it, but I do hear the term “diner” more often than café. Apparently it’s all about whether food is served and if so, what kind of food.
And thank you for saying you want to read all this. I hope one day, you will!
I’m not sure why I used the word “café.” In the next book, when this is referenced by the woman he was talking to, she refers to it as a “diner.” I’ve gone back and changed it to “diner” in his story, too.
Thanks for prompting an edit!