I dined this evening in an elegant restaurant in an elegant hotel. The meal, excellent as it was, was marred by occasional raucous outbursts from a nearby table. You’d think that the surroundings and the price tag would deter riff-raff. But you’d be wrong in this age of vulgarity and noise.
I reached the hotel and restaurant by driving along what was once one of America’s most beautiful boulevards. The boulevard — like the restaurant — has been degraded by riff-raff who believe that the desecration of elegance and beauty raises them up. It simply reveals them for the savages that they are.
For your visual pleasure, here are a few photos of the hotel, the restaurant, and the boulevard (before its desecration):
That’s the statue of Robert E. Lee, which with several of its kind used to grace the traffic circles along the boulevard. The boulevard was and is called Monument Avenue, but the name now rings hollow.
The hotel (The Jefferson Hotel), the restaurant (Lemaire), and Monument Avenue are in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond has gone a long haul in the wrong direction.