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| It's always good to take two snaps of a scene. In case you get a mayfly in one of them. |
Being a two-birds-with-one-stone type of guy — okay, I don't like the idea of hitting birds with stones, even as metaphor. A multi-tasker then.
Either way, after realizing I had to leave my car to be serviced at the Mazda in Evanston for a few hours on Thursday, my first thought was how to fill the time. Sure, I could sit in the comfortable Mazda lounge, reading The New Yorker and drinking spring water and trying not to eat too many granola bars. But that seemed so passive.
The drop-off was for 11:30 a.m., so lunch seemed appropriate. My usual Evanston lunch companion, Prof. Bill Savage of Northwestern University, was unavailable, so I tapped ... oh, I shouldn't say ... a local politician. We'd talked about having lunch.
Trouble was, the Mazda service center is sort of off the beaten track — 2201 Autobarn place, behind a Target. Way off the beaten track, actually. A 50 minute walk to Lucky Platter, where this fellow and I met last time, years ago. An Uber would cost more than lunch, and be a sort of surrender. I thought of asking him to pick me up at the dealership. But that seems, oh, high-handed. So I looked at Google Maps, and found an eatery just a 15 minute walk away, Main Pizza Chalavi. Never heard of the place. I looked at their menu online. They had salads. He agreed.
It felt odd to be walking down Howard Street on a bright June day, past the tiny brick homes. But also good. I got to my destination about 15 minutes early, and paused before the above unassuming structure pictured above and saw ... well, let's see if you notice what I noticed. Take good look.
The sign on the building said, rather grandly considering its modest brick facade, "Salon of Hairdressing" while the sign jutting from the building read "Franz Hairdressing Salon." And I realized that I hadn't a clue what those various parts of speech are called. No grammarian I. And what is the difference between A of B and BA? The former certainly sounds grander. "House of Lords" is much more high toned than "Lords' House." What part of language is this?
At first I suspected the genitive case — showing possession. "The health of Bob" is also "Bob's health." " But hairdressing doesn't possess the salon — it isn't Hairdressing's Salon. Rather, the dressing of hair is what occurs there. There is no possession. It's really a noun-as-adjective pair, like "bowl of water" and "water bowl." The water describes the bowl, as the sort of vessel water goes in. Franz works in the sort of salon that does hairdressing.
Setting aside the grammatical issues for a later time, I approached the door. The place seemed abandoned, and I assumed it would be locked. But I pushed. The door opened several inches. Peering in, and saw those old-fashioned hood dryers that I associate with women in the 1960s smoking cigarettes and having their bouffants teased. I should have gone in and written a column about the quirky characters there. But it was silent, empty inside — and I could have just as easily been shot. I departed, already castigating myself as a coward.
My lunch mate showed up. I suggested we hop in his car and go anywhere else. No, he said, this was intriguing. We went in. I ordered the cranberry salad, which was truly excellent. Really, a first rate salad, even though I couldn't get any chicken on it — it was a dairy salad, and God forbids it. They made do with cashews for protein. My friend and I had a lively conversation and I even remembered to stop talking at various points and ask him about himself.
I'm tempted to go back, have another salad, then gird my loins and plunge into Franz Hairdressing Salon or, to put on airs, the Salon of Hairdressing. There must be a story there.
I knew immediately that I was looking at THE former Gulliver's. The original one from the 60s. Looks like the mishpocha didn't put many shekels into a new sign, either. They just covered up the old one.
ReplyDeleteYou could have driven over to Howard and Ridge, and gotten take-out seafood from the Fish Keg, and then found a park and had a picnic. That's what my wife and I did last summer. We ate our fish dinners near the Charles Dawes house in Evanston, at Greenwood Beach. You probably know where that is, Mr. S.
Did you know that Dawes wrote the melody to "It's All in the Game" back in 1912? The lyrics were written forty years later. That song is the only No. 1 single in the U.S. to have been co-written by a U.S. Vice President... or by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Dawes was both.
I second the Fish Keg. Get some fried shrimp, the perfect trayf!
DeleteMy thing there was the fried smelts. I would take a bag of them across the street and eat it on the outdoor patio of the Dairy Queen, and then top it off with one of their frozen treats. Alas, the Dairy Queen is long gone, replaced by a block-long four-story building. The smelts are gone, too...from Lake Michigan, and from the Fish Keg. If you ask for them, you will be mocked and scorned.
DeleteI miss Lake Michigan Smelt too. I remember when bars would have all you can eat specials on Friday nights.
DeleteIt used to be legal to net them in Michigan. In the Spring we would go to the pier in St Joe or New Buffalo. We’d have a Coleman lantern and a cooler full of beer and huge schools of them would come in. Literally millions of them. We would scoop some out and clean them with scissors and a toothbrush. Rinsed them off and they were ready for the frying pan. Delicious.
They are still taking smelt out of lake Michigan Grizz. Just not many. If you get half a bucket in 6 hrs it's a good nite
DeleteMy first wife's grandma lived right on the lake, up in Sturgeon Bay, WI. Also had a creek running through her yard, which flowed into the lake. Back in the 60s and 70s, fishermen paid her plenty, just for the privilege of smelting on her property. Along the shore, and on the banks of the creek, The smelt catches were fantastic.
DeleteIn the early 50s, I remember people taking buckets and buckets of smelt right off Rainbow Beach when they were "running." The one time I had a little success in catching perch off the Black Rocks, my Mom refused to clean and cook them. I grew up a couple blocks from the Lake; my Mom's formative years were spent in Englewood in 3 and 4 story walkups -- fish you got at A&P.
Deletejohn
Let me know when you next need Mazda service and a lunch mate in Evanston. I’ll even pick you up.
ReplyDeleteAnd how am I supposed to do that?
DeleteYour fascination with the "Salon of Hairdressing" reminds me of that guy who always wrote to Roseanne Roseannadanna.
ReplyDelete"A Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, N.J., writes in and asks ..."
She would end your column with, "Mr. Steinberg, you ask a lot of questions."
I'm tempted to give you a grammar lesson, but I will not yield to temptation.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between "A of B" and "BA"? I see a strong hint of language origins here. The name Franz doesn't seem particularly French, but if you first opened your Salon de Coiffure in France, or some other European country where they like to put their adjectives after the nouns instead of ahead of them (Italian or Portuguese, for example), you'd order up a sign reading "Salon of Hairdressing" when you emigrated to America.
ReplyDeleteOnce the income justified a nice lighted sign on the building, the sign company might gently suggest that "Hairdressing Salon" would read a little more directly in the American style.
Franz could be from Alsace-Lorraine.
DeleteNext time, call me. I'll come get ya.
ReplyDeleteA hard ask if you stay Anonymous!
ReplyDeleteNeil--my 97-year-old mother was a Franz regular. We moved from Evanston to Northbrook in '75 and she continued to make the trek to Howard Street. Franz lived in Glenview and had something like 10 kids. One of his daughters worked there and she cut my hair on occasion. Lovely family.
ReplyDelete