Bavarian Inn

In Shepherdstown, West Virginia, over on the side of a mountain, overlooking the roaring waters of a river below and just beyond the meeting of three states in my country, there stands a restaurant serving traditional German dishes with German names and English descriptions below on the menus – such dishes that translate in American English to such delicacies as venison stew (freshly made from a deer shot by marksmen in the forests above) and leg of lamb, served with the best jellies in the world. In my boyhood, in the ’70s, there was generally an old man in the background of that restaurant, dressed warmly in black, oldfashioned attire such as a woollen hat and woollen coat and linen trousers, playing on an accordion the old songs of his ancestral Germany from the beginnings of the last century. The man is now gone, but, to the best of my knowledge, the restaurant still stands there. I am transported there sometimes in my dreams to that old man’s music. And I feel like dancing.