The group that assembled at the Laurel Tavern on Monroe Street on a Monday evening earlier this month pushed three tables together and prepared to both celebrate and mourn a vanished time and place in Madison, and the charismatic figure at the center of it.
I sa t across the table from Paul Soglin, who served as Madison mayor in four different decades. To my right was our friend Dan Waisman, who owned Pic -A-Book on State Street and helped found the Greater State Street Business Association in 1989.
There were maybe a dozen of us in all, connected by the Golden Dragon restaurant and bar , just off the Capitol Square on East Mifflin St reet , and a friendship with Suey Kong Wong, whose family operated it from 1974-1999…