my late night serenity
In textiles class we are creating "badges of identity" that incoporate something meaningful in our lives. Our first assignment in meeting these ends involved a short narrative describing our inspiration. Most chose a particular life event or person that has shaped their development. I, however, decided to summerize my experience with a place that is near and dear to all our (Sioux City) hearts: The Horizon.
On the edge of my city, where the interstate meets the business district, sits an unsuspecting restaurant, a dive really, that has existed for time out of mind. We rediscovered and descended upon it sometime between my sophomore and junior years, taking up the rallying cry, “Let’s hit The Ho!”
The Horizon Restaurant, less formally known as “The Ho”, became the headquarters of the group of social miscreants known as my friends. It was a place of wonders of the likes in which we had never seen. Sodomites, transvestites, drunks, punks, and scene kids all sat stewing over their 95-cent coffee and dinner diners. The air smelled faintly of the perfumes of less than reputable women and strongly of stale coffee and cigarette smoke.
And although nothing significant has ever happened there, nothing that has changed my life, endless hours spent sitting across from my best friend inhaling our slow deaths through cancer-sticks and sipping coffee flavored water have been ingrained forever in not only my memories, but in my very being. All those little moments, comprised of little conversations and little affirmations and little realizations, have inadvertently changed my person far more than any one moment of grandeur.
And so it has come to pass that The Horizon is not just a dive where I go nearly every night to escape the responsibilities of life and pay too much for cocoanut cream pie. It is a part of my slow bold growth from child to adult and it sits at the crossroads of my city and my way out.
On the edge of my city, where the interstate meets the business district, sits an unsuspecting restaurant, a dive really, that has existed for time out of mind. We rediscovered and descended upon it sometime between my sophomore and junior years, taking up the rallying cry, “Let’s hit The Ho!”
The Horizon Restaurant, less formally known as “The Ho”, became the headquarters of the group of social miscreants known as my friends. It was a place of wonders of the likes in which we had never seen. Sodomites, transvestites, drunks, punks, and scene kids all sat stewing over their 95-cent coffee and dinner diners. The air smelled faintly of the perfumes of less than reputable women and strongly of stale coffee and cigarette smoke.
And although nothing significant has ever happened there, nothing that has changed my life, endless hours spent sitting across from my best friend inhaling our slow deaths through cancer-sticks and sipping coffee flavored water have been ingrained forever in not only my memories, but in my very being. All those little moments, comprised of little conversations and little affirmations and little realizations, have inadvertently changed my person far more than any one moment of grandeur.
And so it has come to pass that The Horizon is not just a dive where I go nearly every night to escape the responsibilities of life and pay too much for cocoanut cream pie. It is a part of my slow bold growth from child to adult and it sits at the crossroads of my city and my way out.