Last night the LXD went out drinking and had a swell time. At the end of the night we went to get burritos at La Casita - Portland's premier 24 hour Mexican food resturant. It's a great place to go (especially after a few drinks), but one thing has been perplexking me for a while now.
The resturant used to be on on the corner of Burnside in a building that has been about 300 different resturants over the last 50 years, starting with a diner back in the early fifties. When you used to go to the location there had always been a giant black-n-white photo on the wall of the resturant back when it first opened - no matter what the resturant was at the time, this picture would be there. Anyone that would come in for the first time would say, "Check that out! This must've been this place like 50 years ago. You can totally see how the place has changed over the years."

Well, La Casita - realizing that their location was doomed - moved to another place about ten blocks away. Guess what? They took the picture with them! They took the historical photo that has been in the other building for 50 years and hung it up on the wall in the new place. If you go there for the first time now, you'll say, "That's an odd photo to have hanging on the wall here." Totally out-of-context.
So, last night I finally asked the waitress why they have the photo, and she kinda understood me.


Robot: Why do you have this photo on the wall here?
Waitress: It used to be old La Casita. The old building, yes?
Robot: Yeah, but why do you have it here? In this building?
Waitress: Because this in the new La Casita. That was picture of old La Casita.
Robot: That pictures been there for years...shouldn't you have left it there for the next people?
Waitress: (realizing what I'm getting at) Oh!.....nah.


Oh well. I guess some threads of history end and become mystery. I look forward to going back to La Casita's building 20 years from now, when it's a different business and see if the photo from the other building is still there, and the new owners think that it used to be the building they're in now. But, somewhow I know that if La Casita moves again they'll just take it with them.