The Naam

The Naam is where I work from 3am to 11 two days a week, and before I worked there Adrienne had taken me there twice as a special treat. It is open twenty four hours and serves only vegetarian food with a vegan equivalent for everything on the menu. It is populated almost entirely by hippies and now, me.
It has the feel, now that I have had more in-depth contact with it, of the faded glory of the days in Vancouver when the road on which it sits was called Rainbow road and not 4th Ave. There is a large contingent of old guard servers still working from its opening forty years ago. These folk are fascinating, kind people with a spark in their eyes from a well spent youth. Everyone, young and old looks out for each other, covers each other's shifts and enjoys their work.
I work for the head cleaner Dale, who paddles (a cross between surfing and rowing) and is a photographer for fashion events. He is so consistently bursting with energy that he twitches and tends to blurt his sentences. At first his energy would make me incredibly nervous, feeling that I should be at least doing my tasks at a gently jog to keep pace with his spirits. He is fantastically cheery, even at three in the morning and is a wee bit of a letch.
I could write paragraphs on Al, who fascinates me. It turns out that after ditching school, dramatically hurling his 'bullshit' textbooks into the trash he became Al, the misfit. There was no need for a career in his day, at least not for everyone. In a time where you could serve tables for three months of the year and then disappear into the wilderness to live with a bunch of your friends hunting, swimming and taking acid, where was the need? He is a man of pet theories and distrusts all types of authority, the chief among which are Science and the Government.
My favourite part of the Naam is the part on which I can't say much, that is the mysterious Indian lady cooks who work in the tiny kitchens. All wonderful, they are always friendly to any tired cleaners at 3am who can remember their names. Yesterday I learned to my delight that my birthday falls on Indian New Year and so now every year I can find local Indian parades near my birthday, which happen to be as colourful and friendly as any I have seen.
Ewan of the Naam out.