When I was a kid, I used to beg my dad to take me to nice restaurants.

My favorite was the restaurant located inside the Red Lion Hotel, which to an eight-year-old kid was soooo fancy, but nowadays (or at least prior to their recent remodels and relaunching), and with my older eyes, is kind of seedy.

I remember that I thought it was so fancy how they brought you a menu and there were fabric (!) napkins instead of thin paper. And sometimes they would have “live music” which consisted of a (usually aging) woman pretending at being a lounge singer.

To me, she was amazing.

We would order something fairly inexpensive (I assume) and sometimes we would share so that we could splurge a little.

When I go to dinner now, especially for work dinners, I routinely go to places much nicer than I think this place ever was, and some of the bills run up by a group of five or more people are truly astounding. It’s almost become ho-hum…as long as I’m not in sweatpants, I don’t worry about dressing up or get nervous about my table manners. It’s been awhile since I went anywhere that I thought was intimidating or “too nice” for me to be at.

None of those places tick in my mind though, not like the one I would go to with my dad.

The restaurant was called Misty’s. I don’t know if it was the restaurant or just spending time with my dad, but I still remember how excited I was to go there and how fancy it felt.

I think I might take the Kid out for a fancy dinner sometime. If he can keep his face out of his iPhone, that is.