Squares

I have definitely come to terms with this fact and I can fully admit it in a public forum. I am not a hipster. (You already knew that.)

On Saturday, I was reminded of this fact.

Lisa and I stepped out of our suburban comfort zone to go hang out downtown for a while. We have both wanted to attend an exhibit at the East Tennessee Museum of History focusing on 60 years of television in the greater Knoxville area. So, a blustery Saturday seemed like just the time. 

There wasn’t anything particularly shaming about attending the exhibit.  It was just the two OTHER stops we made downtown that reminded me that I am now and ever shall be a suburbanite.

First, we went to lunch at the Tomato Head. I was craving some of its yummy pizza and Lisa is often good for some sort of frue frue lunch (if I remember correctly, she ordered something called ‘Hummus Soup’ – a.k.a. pablum), so the two of us checked out fine to that point.

It was when the young female server approached our table, with mod haircut and fashionable urban clothing, that I started to recognize my ‘fish out of water’ status. Then, one look around the room…to all the guys with super tight jeans and trendy beards and tousled hair and I realized the old Sesame Street adage would be appropriately applied to me: “One of these things is not like the other.”

Lisa said, in comparing herself to the female hipsters around the room, she felt the same way.

So, if we clearly aren’t hipsters, what’s the opposite term? Squares? Maybe it’s fitting we were eating our lunch just off Market Square? Perhaps in that way, we were more at home than I thought?

Now, let me say, I am a big fan of the urban dwellers and I tip my cap to them and all the city business leaders for doing a fine job of revitalizing downtown. On a frosty weekend day, in olden times, the city streets might have been empty. In this case, what we found included bustling sidewalks and a number of residents out and about.

I’m impressed by it all…even if I usually just watch from afar.

Later, after the exhibit, we dropped by Mast General Store and, again, I got the feeling that we were the only two Farragutters in the place. I think there might have been many folks around the room planning their urban gardens, shopping for chic attire or giving a ‘how quaint’ appraisal of the penny candy bins or the rows and rows of properly packaged preserves at the back of the store.

I didn’t mind being slightly out of place. I hope my fellow shoppers didn’t mind me and my people watching.

At the end of the day, we did our part to support the downtown economy with

• Parking
• Nominal Admission Fee
• Purchase at Mast

So, really, it’s all good for everyone.

And, after a few weeks under the chill and effects of the polar vortex, it was nice to brave the elements, overcome the desire to just sit on a comfy couch and go out and do something unique and interesting in an effort to beat back the twinge of cabin fever that is starting to grip all of us.

To that end, our outing was a rousing success. It fit me and my traditional ol’ Levi’s just fine.

JG

Originally posted 1/27/2014