Debbie Harry
Culture. “I go to Athens when I need a little culture,” my supervisor said to me on the very first day I met her. We were discussing Athens and it’s close proximity to McConnelsville, the city where my potential new job would be located. As I later found out, she really wanted me to work for her and she was baiting me with promises of culture within driving distance. I bought it hook, line and sinker and yesterday I got to experience my first forty-five minute drive navigating the ridge tops and subtle valleys of the land that flows between McConnelsville and Athens for a little bit of “culture.”
When I was sharing the story about my supervisor with some of my family at home, one of my Aunts (who has been to Athens several times in recent years) immediately said to me, in a mocking and sarcastic manner, “She goes to ATHENS for culture?” as if the possibility of what she knows to be “culture” could exist in poor, rural, Appalachian, Ohio. Yesterday, I could do nothing but smirk to myself as I walked up and down the streets of uptown Athens. Yes, there is more culture in the faintly, eroded letters “Athens Block,” carved into the century old brick under my feet than my Aunt could find at any cosmopolitan, recently opened, wildly reviewed restaurant or bar or shop in the Greater Cleveland area.
My day started with a trip to the Athens Bulk Food Depot, one of my favorite spots, where the short, petite, and adorably charming Italian woman who has worked there forever pulled the lever on the spout of a five gallon bucket and filled a quart jar full of thick, sticky Athens dark honey (which didn’t make it home without being opened and invaded by my fingertips). Then my car groaned as it rumbled, tumbling over the brick laden streets that create the grid of Uptown, surrounding nineteenth century buildings like a carefully planned series of rugged, red moats. Some of these bricks are engraved Athens Blocks, some Nelsonville Blocks, and some Trimble Blocks. No matter where they came from, they came from somewhere not more than a day’s journey away when there were still furnaces and kilns firing Southeastern Ohio’s clay.
I parked my car facing upward on a hill. It had started to pour rain only minutes before I’d parked, yet there was already a mighty river gaining strength and volume as it ran through the crevices between the bricks as it made it’s way to the Hocking. I tip-toed and leapt over the rushing water, dropping two quarters into what to me is a somewhat despised parking meter, and sprinted under the plum colored awning of my favorite coffee shop in the entire world. Immediately upon entering Donkey Coffee, you are comforted by the familiar darkness, dimly lit by tiny table lamps, that accompanies a great coffee shop. The hues are earthen; the wooden paneling on the walls is not outdated yet rustic and charming. Your senses are filled by the sight of a steaming espresso machine straight ahead of you, the sound as it whistles out the boiling pressure, the smell of rich, roasted fair trade coffee, the feel of soothing dampness as the steam wafts over the counter towards you, and finally of course, the taste. Donkey Coffee brews and creates my very favorite cup of coffee I’ve ever had. They are the only coffee shop to my knowledge, of anywhere I’ve ever lived, that serves Italian-style cappuccinos. Like most things that are Italian, it puts its competitors and often merely imitators to shame. An equal portion of steamed organic, locally raised milk and bitter, acidic espresso, and just a touch of Amaretto and for me there is nothing like it. I carefully carried my teetering cup and saucer, foam and coffee spilling over, staining my fingers, and sat down at a table tucked into a corner perfect for people watchers and voyeurs alike. I love the way the foam feels against my lips as I patiently tip the cup until warm, sweet, nutty coffee pours over my tongue and fills in the spaces between my teeth and my cheeks. Yes, yes this coffee really is that good.
After my little afternoon coffee break, and during a brief reprieve from the torrential downpour, I walked two doors down to a restaurant that offers a sensory experience I’ve yet to experience anywhere else in America. I was meeting a very old college friend at Salaam on West Washington Street. Just upon stepping inside and letting the door slowly close behind me, braced against my back, I was slowly taken from the humid, steamy street to a casual Parisian-style salon somewhere like Morocco or fantastically colorful places in Northern Africa. The mood inside Salaam is purple and blue. Tapestries, or modern versions thereof, line the walls and spackle the rooms with gold, green, red, orange, magenta and lavender. Decorative tiles line an opening in the wall where at eye-level; dishes of steaming curry and boldly spiced kabobs fresh from the grill await their journey from kitchen to table. Seemingly endless strands of beads drape the windows like curtains, and pieces of pottery, ceramics and works of metal art dot the tables and ledges around the restaurant’s rooms. It smells like a bustling market, between meat seared on the grill and vegetables doused in curry and coconut, and in the oven where pastry puffs between layers of spinach and feta as the chef prepares one of their Greek imports. Just when you find yourself halfway through a glass of their delightfully warming house red, awaiting a salad of grilled chicken and roasted beets with honey and goat cheese, thinking that nothing could make this experience any better, your ears perk to the sound of softly jingling metal. Suddenly, music is turned from soft to audibly noticeable, and across the room you follow the sound to a bare-bellied woman in a long, flowing skirt with thin metal medallions strung in layers around her hips. The soft jingling then turns into an energy driven percussion ensemble, and before you know it, she is belly dancing her way past your table. Our food arrived, my senses were filled, and I spent the rest of the evening contently deep in conversation and drunk on the world around me.
No, there’s no culture in Athens. Not even a little bit.
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