ANYWAY...checking out Fullerton online to see what's changed, I saw that Rutabegorz is still there. Forty years old this year in fact. I used to go there with friends back in the early '70's. It was in '71 or '72 that a friend, Carol P., (who passed away at 46, from breast cancer in '98, (ladies take the hint)), loved it, and got me going there, dragged me there really. Before she passed she'd bought a condo and was living in Fayetteville, going to Upstate in Syracuse for chemo, when she told me they'd said it was back, and gave her another year. It's vague now, we'd made plans to go dancing on her birthday. She went back to her home in Manhatten. I don't remember the exact timing but just before her birthday I think, husband number 5, called and told me she'd passed over. The funny thing is I still hear her talking to me. She's always here, but that's another story too. I guess when you know and care about somebody, seeing or talking to them, almost every day for nearly thirty years, they don't just disappear... Back then one place I worked, right behind the bowling alley on Lincoln Ave, was a company called Anaconda Electronics, in mechanical assy. earning a whopping 2.90 an hour, and one of the guys I worked with, then Bill H., later more formally William H., also was a regular at Rutabegorz, and got all of us in the department to drive over there after work. We usually went to our Lead Man's house to drink and play pool on Friday's after work. He turned out to be a great guy, possibly a genius in some ways, married to a wonderful lady named Jean. Unfortunately didn't recognize his brilliance until years later.
ANYWAY...Rutabegorz was like a cross between a head shop, and a coffee house in those days, when Carol dragged me there. But I liked it. We'd go there in the afternoons or evenings and get drinks or coffee, sit for hours hanging out, there were people playing guitar and singing here, playing chess there, and just sitting at a table or in chairs reading or talking somewhere else. As I remember, it was dark, and cool, with tables and chairs here and easy chairs there. But time, and I moved on, and now it seems that 40 years later it's still there. The pictures on the website make it look a little Denny's-ish. Perhaps not the same great place to hang out now, don't know. They do now have 3 locations and a bed & breakfast in Orange. I'll check it out when I get back. In the universe/reality where she didn't get cancer and die, and I didn't move here, probably Carol and I are still going there...who knows.Lee Murray
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