cheek, with a woman who looked exactly like Mrs. Garrett from The Facts of Life, while the band played “New Orleans Ladies” by Louisiana Le Roux. I can still smell her perfume. We’d take the occasional break from the Country Club to ride up the hill to Garon’s, “Home of the Frosty Mug.” Jaffe and I were starving bachelors at the time, so we’d order a vile creation of chicken, spices, and deep fried sin, called “Demon Bites.” Invariably, I’d wake up during the night with heartburn bad enough to make me believe I’d never live to see my twenty-sixth birthday. (My wife and I had our post-wedding reception at Garon’s; our friends from Atlanta and Birmingham declared it the most exotic experience of their lives.) My favorite place these days is the Valley Tavern, a low-slung, concrete affair squatting on the only flat spot for miles, just inside Tennessee. It’s what a honky-tonk ought to be, free of the pretense of Nashville’s Lower Broadway, faux-honky-tonk hellholes, full of drunk tourists and rhinestone cowboys. Unlike those wannabes, the Valley Tavern serves its ice cold American pilsner and crispy froglegs with a side order of sincerity. Glyn Usery is the Tavern’s part-time proprietor. Mr. Usery is a man of indeterminable age. He carries his years well as he works the room, asking after everybody’s mama or the age of our children. My family has known him forever, and I always look forward to seeing him.
| noalastudios.com | may/june