A few days ago, a local restaurant, Red Onion, closed its doors. I ate there periodically through the decades, but recent mention of the establishment triggered an almost forty-year-old memory.

For the first five months of 1986, fresh out of college, I was employed as a front desk clerk at the newly opened Sheraton Hotel in Boone, North Carolina. It was the largest and nicest hotel in town at that time.

One evening, as I stood engaged in a phone conversation, a man walked up to the desk donning a ball cap. He continually stared at me, tilting his gaze at various angles, almost to the point of my discomfort and irritation, and I wondered what his problem was. I finished the call, and his first words to me were, “I’ve never seen hair like that before.” At the time, my “straight as a stick” hair was longer and came further down my forehead, and it was combed around and heavily shellacked in place with hairspray. Okay, so maybe he had a fair point.

The man wanted a room, and I handed him a registration form to complete. One of the required pieces of information was the license plate number from his vehicle. As he stepped out to retrieve it, I took the form to complete my portion and saw his name and city of residence – “Arthur Garfunkel, New York, New York.”

When he returned to the desk, I said, “I see your last name is Garfunkel. Are you related to Garfunkel of Simon and Garfunkel?” (I had forgotten Garfunkel’s given name.) 

“Not exactly,” he replied. 

“Are you THE Garfunkel?” I asked. 

He affirmed he was, and when I asked what he was doing in Boone, he said he was just passing through. He told me that, on his way into town, he had driven by a restaurant called Red Onion, and he wanted to eat there. He, no doubt, was hungering for an entree seasoned with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. He asked me to call and find out how late they were open. I forget the name of the person I spoke with, but it may have been Mrs. Robinson. 

After confirming his identity, Art Garfunkel became more recognizable to me, and I recalled how he normally looked (sans ball cap) in concert on TV. I also remembered his distinctive hairdo, whereupon I thought to myself that his comment about mine was like the pot calling the kettle black.

Before he departed for dinner, I asked him, “How long do you plan to stay?” 

“It depends on whether I like it here or not,” he replied. 

He checked out the following day, leaving only the sound of silence.