Clifton's Cafeteria

When I was a kid going back and forth from my mother's house to my father's the exchange took place at Clifton's Cafeteria in downtown LA. My father and I shared many breakfasts here sitting in little cave-like rooms munching our toast. We were surrounded by waterfalls and the sounds of macaws and I never got over the thrill of it. Sitting there in the dim, (dark) rooms it felt like we were in cahoots in some grand adventure.

Years later in an attempt to leave my hippy days behind I sat at these very same tables drinking black coffee, circling the classified job section and reading George Orwell's "Down and Out in London and Paris". Now, though I could hear the shrill waitresses, the clack of dishes and through the dim lighting I could see the nozzle at the top of the waterfall and the macaw's cry had been replaced by musak.