Roller Blading at Cafe Manhattan

We were asked out to dinner Sunday night with the Raskas clan. We do the family thing with them. Nice people, lots in common. Drew is a 15 year old prodigy on the guitar and I have been inspired by him to continue to play, thereby setting an example for my daughter to play and now we have guitars stacked along the walls of the house because of it. I am getting ready to set the basement up as a recording studio and I will have an album out soon. I found my Breedlove acoustic under a bale of dirty clothes in Natalie's room yesterday, she is so grounded.

Natalie and Drew are friends and did a talent show a while back where Drew played the guitar and she and another friend, Beth, sang "Perfect Day". Drew was a good sport, playing some pretty advanced stuff to a simple song. The girls did well too, even though they needed to dance like Fergie, but didn't . Anyway, it was a far cry from the stuff he normally plays in his band, The Beginning of The End. He was a good sport to do that for those girls.

So I didn't know where this place was, Cafe Manhattan. I thought it was where the Manhattan Express was, next to Starbucks on Wydown. Turns out it is right around the corner. So me and the girls (and Beth who had joined us for the evening) were returning to the car from a quick "turnaround" realizing we were at the wrong place. All of the sudden I hear this schhuuuugggghhhhhh, and this roller blader damn near takes me out in the middle of the sidewalk. No warning, no alert, nothing. He must have been going a good 15 miles an hour, never said a word. Scared the hair right off my head.

So I take off running after the guy. I was wearing my new "Jesus" beach shoes from Florida that I had bought from the Wiki Tiki surf shop down in Sarassota, so I couldn't get a kick out of them to save my life. They were slowing me down so I shed them in one full cyclomotion, handed them to Janie and said, "go ahead and order, I have some business to take care of".

We headed east down Wydown, past Big Bend where the dude ducked in between the hedges near Clayton School. I was thinking, I would fall back, let him get a gap then double forward and body slam him up by the entrance to Forest Park. I was feeling a little worn, from two full days of bike racing. The DRJ was tough, I had to be at my best. Lets face it, he had wheels, I was in bare feet, collard shirt and cargo shorts.

I saw him dart in between one of those goofy looking hybrid Honda's and a blazer with an Airstream attached to it. Next thing you know, blam, I am laying face down in the grass with handcuffs by a one of those mounted police. Turns out the rollerblader was yelling "stalker chasing me" all the way down Wydown. I couldn't hear him because my bare feet were slapping the pavement so hard it sounded like an applause of feet slappy kenya. Here I am, limping because I was barefooted and a blister was starting to form on my toe, I am gaining on this guy and he plays the "stalker" card. It was a brilliant move on his part. Nice. I was almost close enough to get the jump before the sudden rude awakening.

Well, turns out the cop and I went to high school together over at Country Day, we asked each other where we went to high school and all. I always say Country Day, because, well, somebody said to say that once as a spiffy remark to a St. Louis Cliche. I am not native. He believed my story and agreed that it was all one big misunderstanding. He offered to have my shirt dry cleaned but I refused. He gave me a catering order for Pfoodman, for his nephews graduation party at the house down in Crestwood. You never know when you are going to get an order.

He gave me a lift back up to Hanley and Wydown at around 90 MPH with siren and lights, that was cool, to Cafe Manhattan, were a group of eager listeners awaited. I nesteled in to my whole wheat pizza, piping hot, from the ovens of Cafe Manhattan.