So, We're Not In "Pleasantville" Anymore?
PART ONE - a three minute read
Last night my wife and I joined two friends at a local Mexican restaurant which was recently acquired by an Indian entrepreneur. I had spoken with this fortyish-year-old guy at some length, shortly after he’d opened five months ago. The small restaurant had previously been in the same father and son hands for forty years, but the new owner shared his excited hopes for a somewhat different future.
As the four of us sat down we were served salsa and chips by the same Latino waitress we’d seen half a dozen times over the years. Then we were each handed two menus representing the old and new cooks that were back in the kitchen. As we settled in, we watched the matriarch of the original Mexican family still setting tables and sweeping the floors.
As a couple of us ate our tortillas and beans, the other two ate aloo gobi masala. We talked about our families and recent discord that we’d either struggled with or danced around. Then the conversation drifted toward the many family skeletons that we so dutifully kept in our closets. In the process, I re-discovered that family dysfunction, including felony worthy behaviors, is not uncommon, even in the supposedly respectable white middle-class homes we’d grown up in.
Looking around at fellow diners and staff, I could only imagine the types of stories that they also could tell. I’m convinced that few, if any of us, live so-called normal lives. Maybe we should assume that other people carry as much baggage as we do. It may not be true, but it would give them a leg up - before our judgement kicks in.
I hope the restaurant manages to keep going with two cooks. And it’s high time I watch Pleasantville!
I haven't seen Pleasantville, but watching the trailer makes me think we are living Pleasantville backwards in 2023! I'll have to put it on my watch list. It looks good.