Some decades back, I was in downtown Seattle fairly late in the evening for some reason or other. Fencing class, or I had taken in a movie, or something. I stopped into a small, hole-in-the-wall coffee shop for a quick coffee before grabbing the bus home. The coffee shop's lunch counter was one of these horseshow shaped ones, and there was a juke box every five feet or so along the counter.

I glanced up and saw a couple sitting across from me. Other than a bored waitress who was reading a magazine, we were the only people in the place.

The man looked familiar. Then it suddenly hit me! It was Mel Tormé, crooner and occasional scat-singer. The "Velvet Fog." I remembered that he was scheduled to give a concert someplace in Seattle earlier that evening. But what was he doing in a little joint like this, not in some fancy restaurant? Nevertheless, there he was. Or someone who was a dead-ringer for him.

Just for the helluvit, I flipped the listings on the joke box thingy on the counter and spotted Mel Tormé's latest hit. I shoved a nickel in the slot and punched the buttons for that particular song. A few seconds later, the dulcet tones of Mel Tormé issued forth. The two of them looked up. He looked around, and obviously, by process of elimination, the guilty party had to be me.

He grinned and said to his lady companion in a voice loud enough for me to hear, "Jeez! Some people have no musical taste!!" Then he looked over at me, still smiling. I grinned back and shrugged my shoulders. We both laughed, then we all went back to our coffee.

He was probably glad that I didn't come over and ask him for his autograph or something.

Don Firth