Three's the Charm

 Three’s the Charm

My first stint of three waitress jobs was at a mom and son operation not far from where my family summered in rural New Hampshire. After daydreaming about earning some money, I was ecstatic when at my cold call interview they agreed to take me on. I remember the mother as wiry and short. She had gray hair tied up in a bun and, everything she did, she did fast. I shadowed her as she buzzed around the kitchen out back behind the counter and stood at attention as she barked directives: 

Only two slices of tomatoes on the BLT! 

Add fifty cents if they order extra cheese! 

Scoop just this much tuna onto the melt! 

This is where we keep the knife to slice a sandwich; don’t move it anywhere else!

These many fries with the burger - no more! 

Like her, I’m scrappy, too, so I wasn’t intimidated by her. I will admit to shock, though, the day I watched her accidentally cut her finger while slicing turkey for a sandwich. Her lesson on how to salvage a sandwich from an accidental finger bleed was unabashed: Quickly rinse the meat under cold water, pat the slices dry, reuse. Except for that, I remained undaunted by the tasks of being a waitress. Well, as it turned out, mostly. That I got fired from that roadside joint at age 15; that was the worst part

Her son was the short-order cook and remained in the background. He was a big, low-key guy who didn’t smile much. Except for the initial job interview, I only knew him as the boss who manned the grill. I was fast, got good at taking orders, kept the coffee cups filled and learned how to cut a mean slice of pie. As the weeks went on, I also got good at fraternizing with the town boys. One day after the lunch crowd cleared out, I slid into one of the booths for an extended visit with one of my favorites. My boss came in, motioned for me to come with him to the kitchen where he matter-of-factly told me that such socializing was strictly off limits. 

I’m not sure how many more days went by. Perhaps a week or so after my first warning, when another irresistible opportunity arrived. It was Macky White and, I’m not lying, he drove a white T-bird. Once again my boss caught me sitting in a booth talking away blissfully with a boy. 

These days neuroscientists explain the limitations of the underdeveloped adolescent brain. That it doesn’t quite fully mature until further into our 20s. The explanation available back then? I was stupid. I didn’t realize how stupid until I opened my pay envelope and read the terse note that notified me that I would no longer be needed to work there and why. I had the decency to be mortified and, at least, smart enough to not let my parents know the reason why I lost my job. 

The next restaurant job I lost wrestled for renown with the hard fact that I had just flunked out of college. After I graduated from high school at 18 in 1965, I day-hopped into UMass Boston while living at home. A solution to my burning need for independence was to work in nearby Maine over the summer of ‘66. I went to Kennebunkport with a friend, easily found a place to live and got a job waiting tables. Unfortunately, a plan that got off to such a fortuitous start got spoiled by a notification from UMass with my failing grade point average and the news that I’d been dismissed. 

Like my fellow students, I had bought books those two semesters, but I was much more compelled by drinking coffee at the local cafe and the fun of running around Boston with my newfound friends. I remained unfazed by having been put on academic probation after my first semester. The joke I make when I tell this story now is that nobody ever told me I had to go to class. For me at that point in life, life was but a dream. My abysmal grade point average at the end of the year garnered me the shame-based moniker flunkie and when my parents opened my grade report, they were none too pleased. 

Post haste, they drove up to Kennebunkport, Maine. And then, because they could; as if it was okay; not that I deserved any degree of consideration or respect; without warning, they showed up to lower the boom and tell me that my time living and working there was over. Because I was in the middle of my shift, we moved outside to the sidewalk where I was put into their car. They waited for me to pack up from my beloved boarding house and drove me home. Helpless, hopeless child that I was, I cried  all the way home. And, I continued to cry in shock for the better part of a week. Technically, that wasn’t a firing, but the level of distress involved in my departure from Maine sapped me of the oblivious joy I swam in being off, away, and on my own. Free for the very first time. 

Drain an ocean, a river, a lake, a pond, a puddle - you’ll end up with some sort of depression. Directionless, disheartened, daunted - all of the above; that was me. Young and underdeveloped, I was lost at age 19. I went into a downturn that resulted in two more jobs that ended in two more firings. And, there was a third job that I left because I thought I was going to be let go. All three involved clerical work: typing letters and forms, answering phones, filing, copying.

As God, life, culture, my place in history would have it, despite the frustrations associated with my academic failure and ill-chosen jobs, by the summer of 1968 I had the good fortune of having fallen in love and was planning an August wedding. The money a friend was making at a prominent Boston restaurant spun me around and, I went back, my third, last (and finally) successful stint at waiting tables. Anthony’s Pier Four was set on Boston Harbor. Windows stretched out all across the front of that enormous dining room. All of my newfound hope was reflected by the sheen and fullness of all that water and sky. And, it was from there, 55 years ago, that Jim and I danced at our wedding and drove off eagerly into the glow of the western sun. I was all of 21. In retrospect, given the strengths and interests that I gradually have developed over the span of 7 decades, it’s no wonder those jobs were not a fit for me. I had little idea of where life would eventually take me, but a suspicion of what it might not be. 

Hope Reflected in All that Water and Sky