01 Breakfast at Don & Paul's
Coffee Shoppe – third edit 2/29 11 AM
It was a chilly windswept Tuesday
morning as I left Van Schoonhoven Square Senior Apartments. I pulled
my cap down a little tighter and rolled my jacket collar up to keep
the cold breeze off my neck. My joints were stiff as they were every
morning. I certainly needed my cane to balance thanks to that
numbness in my feet that came on after my accident. I never even
heard of neuropathy before until I got it a few years ago. I
staggered like a drunk.
Waterford is full of drunks, people
used to say, so I should fit right in and no one will notice. In the
old days, every other business on Broad Street in the village was a
bar, it seemed. They were favored by factory workers after their
shifts before heading home. “Boilermakers”, which is a shot of
whiskey with a beer chaser, was so named in their honor. I find it
interesting how names sometimes evolve. Bartenders would line up
boilermakers on the bar in anticipation of the workers coming in
after their shifts. They did the same thing at noontime for the
workers who “ate lunch” at the bars.
I made my way down to the end of the
street from Van Schoonhoven Square Senior Apartments and took a right
towards the village. It really hasn't changed a lot since the days
of my youth fifty-five-plus years ago. The houses were pretty much
all unchanged. I smiled to myself a bit. I'm back home, I thought.
As I shuffled down the sidewalk, balancing with my cane, my mind
wandered. It seems to wander a lot lately. Probably that accident.
I also can't concentrate or remember much of anything. Concussions
can be serious, and I had two. Stupid tree.
I had been away
from Waterford for decades. I moved around a bit, my first wife and
I. Every twenty years or so we pulled up stakes. We always lived
somewhat close to Waterford, but never seemed to make the time to
visit. We were always busy. Life does that. Jahnn was a sailor.
Since I married into it, I too became a sailor and we were always
busy racing and cruising on our boat.
Sailing is not a matter of life and
death. It is much more important than that. I smiled. After fifty
years of focusing on boating, it doesn't seem important anymore. We
were boating on a lake mostly, fer pete's sake. We couldn't go
anywhere. Just in circles, basically. Maybe that's why many of my
friends stayed in Waterford all these years. They were just going in
circles.
After our divorce, I married another. Pamela and I
moved to Stamford, Connecticut. There, we bought a trawler, and when
I retired we spent time meandering down the east coast, traveling
slowly. What's the rush? Whenever we stopped, we'd play “I could
live here!”. We enjoyed visiting new places, especially in the
south. Small towns with friendly people. Sort of like Waterford. I
could live here. Or here. Or here.
But good times were not
to last. We were spending money “like drunken sailors”. So we
sold the boat and bought ten acres of land in the foothills of the
Adirondacks with the intention of building an off-grid homestead.
There would be room for Pamela's horse, our two goats, four dogs,
three cats, and two chickens. But that accident involving my head
and a falling tree , breaking my neck real good and scrambling my
alleged brains put an end to that. I could no longer build anything.
I couldn't lift more than five pounds. Pretty pathetic for a guy
who used to build rock walls on the property, which had plenty of
rocks. Doctors thought I might be bedridden, but being as stubborn
as I am, and with the help of physical therapy, I got to the point
where I could at least walk a bit. Which I enjoy doing. Keep moving
or you rust.
Rocks. It reminded me of a joke I read
as a kid. A fella stopped his car in the country. There was a
farmer there, standing behind a stone wall resting a bit from working
in his field. The fella said hello.
“Sure are a lot of
rocks here,” the fella said, making small talk.
“Yup,”
said the farmer.
“Where did they all come from?” he
asked.
“Glacier brought 'em,” said the farmer.
“Huh. Where did the glacier go?”
asked the fella, teasing a bit.
“Went back to get more
rocks,” said the farmer.
HAHAHAHA! That joke is still funny. I
still love those corny old kid jokes. More rocks. Ha.
I
wonder why Pamela left me? No boat? Maybe she told me and I forgot.
Now I live in senior housing. It is a
little one bedroom apartment, but after living on a boat, it is more
than large enough for me. I don't need much, nowadays. I miss my
dogs, Ruby and Chevy. They crossed that Rainbow Bridge. I hope
there is one and they're waiting for me.
I kept shuffling
along with my cane and avoiding cracks in the old sidewalk.
There's
the old St. Mary's convent. I wonder if churches still have
convents? All of St. Mary's nuns lived there years ago. I'd see
them walking to and from church in groups Funny. Nuns gave up their
traditional black habits in favor of more traditional, but modest
dress, with hemlines that went to mid-calf. A group of them were
walking up the sidewalk to the convent one Sunday morning, returning
from church. I was riding with my buddy Tom as his father drove us
home from 11 o'clock mass. Mr. Bombard slowed as he approached them.
He rolled down his window.
“Hey Sisters! All this time, I
thought you just floated along!”
I was both horrified (since
nuns were scary and not to be messed with) and laughing hysterically.
Tom went to St. Mary's Elementary School so he was used to nuns, but
he laughed pretty hard too.
I made it as far as St. Mary's
Church Hall. I needed to rest, so I sat on O'Connor's stone wall for
a bit. Went back to get more rocks. I chuckled to myself. Good
joke.
I held my cane in front of me and
rested my chin on the top of my hands. My mind wandered back to the
time when Mr. B. took Tom and I to a smoker at the hall. They called
it a smoker for a reason. All of the men (no women allowed) were
smoking cigars. Tom and I didn't smoke, of course, being only about
eight or nine years old, but we enjoyed watching the featured boxing
match. At the end of the night, they gave away door prizes. I won
an eight pack of spark plugs.
I wonder if the church still has
smokers? Probably not. That is probably frowned upon now.
Especially around kids. And especially in an ancient wooden
building. Talk about a fire trap.
I remember the inside of
the hall. Funny, because I can't remember what I had for lunch
yesterday, but I can recall a place I'd only been in once, for that
smoker, and that was about sixty years ago. The hall was also the
school's gymnasium, with hoops for basketball at each end. One was
over the stage, which I assume was for plays and such, and the other
was attached to a balcony. There were very tall windows on the
sides. The walls were off-white. I don't remember any bleachers.
A
car pulled up alongside the curb in front of me. I lifted my head.
I wondered what make it is? I used to be able to identify cars
easily, but they all look the same now. Like jellybeans.
“Hey
mister, are you OK?” a young guy hollered to me out the driver's
window.
“I'm fine. Just taking a rest. I walked a few
blocks and I'm winded, that's all,” I answered.
“Would you
like a lift?”
“No thank you. I'm only going to the
village. I need to walk.”
“OK mister. Take care,” and
he drove off.
Ha. This is where we used to hitchhike from as
kids. We'd stand by the church hall and thumb rides the mile back
home to Swayze Acres. When we got to be teenagers, we stopped riding
bikes and hitchhiked. Only goobers rode bikes. Hitching was more
grown-up. Someone always stopped and picked us up. It never took
more than five or ten minutes to hitch a ride. But I guess you can't
do that anymore either. Too many damn perverts. We didn't have
perverts in the old days.
I grabbed my cane and stood for a
few seconds. With numbness in my feet, I can't feel the ground too
good. I needed to get my balance before walking. I didn't want to
fall again. I called it “finding my feet”. I was a bit
unsteady, but OK. I shuffled off.
I crossed Division Street
and as I passed the school, I could “hear” the laughter of the
children as they were let out for recess. I wonder if schools still
have recess? I'll have to ask someone.
I then came up to the
largest, grandest structure in the entire village. St. Mary of the
Assumption Church. Not only was it huge, but it was built from giant
granite blocks, with fabulous stained glass windows.
Huh. I
thought the church was larger than that. The granite blocks don't
seem as large either. But still, it is impressive to see. Like a
castle in a Medieval village. Maybe I should go to mass someday. I
haven't done that since 1968. I wonder if they'd even let me in,
since I married Jahnn, a Protestant, without getting permission from
the parish priests. If you were going to marry outside of your
Catholic faith, you needed permission or you'd be excommunicated.
The priests really wanted your non-Catholic wife to convert to
Catholicism, but you at had to at least promise to raise your
children as Catholics. Maybe a heathen alarm would go off if I tried
to go inside. I won't try. Not today. I'm hungry.
Whew. It
was now downhill for the next couple of blocks. I crossed the old
bridge over the old Champlain Canal. I always sing (quietly, since I
can't sing)...
I've got a mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old
pal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
We've hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay
And every inch of the way we know
From Albany to Buffalo
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge cause we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie
Canal
Get up there Sal, we've passed that
lock,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
And we'll make Rome before six o'clock
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
One more trip and back we'll go
Through the rain and sleet and snow
And every inch of the way we know
From Albany to Buffalo
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie
Canal.
I can remember singing that song in
the third grade. I always thought the canal that ran by the school
was the Erie, but it was actually the old Champlain, I later learned
as an adult. As a kid, it didn't matter. What did we care? It was
old. It wasn't used anymore. Progress.
I walked past where Shulusky's Diner
was. Shulusky's had a jukebox, and every table had a small version
where you could play songs for a nickel each. The building was still
there, but now it's a sign shop. Next was where the old IGA was, a
grocery store where my folks shopped. When it opened, it put many
smaller grocers out of business. But then big supermarkets came
along, the ones with the automatic opening doors, and the IGA had to
close. There's now a bakery there.
Next I walked past the
ginney store. We kids bought cigars there for when we went fishing.
As kids, we had no idea what “ginney” meant. We didn't mean it
in a bad way. It was just the ginney store. That's what everyone
called it. We didn't know it wasn't nice. But we knew two old
Italian sisters owned it, all dressed in black, and they would sell
us cigars. If you could reach the counter with your quarter, you got
your cigar.
I got to McGreivy's Restaurant. It used to be
Camp's Grill in the old days. Camp's had four bowling alleys in
there that provided jobs to school kids as pin setters. My father's
Uncle Graham used to tend bar there. He was in World War II. The
big one. I stopped in sometimes to say hi to Uncle Graham. I
remember walking in and the smell of cigars hit me. Uncle Graham
smoked cigars stuck in one of those plastic mouthpieces.
I
crossed the street at the light. Back in the old days, there was a
crossing guard there to get the school kids across. The guard also
owned the liquor store kiddy-corner from Camp's. She dressed like a
man for some reason. I didn't get across fast enough and the light
changed. Someone honked at me. So I shuffled along slower. Damn
kids, always in a hurry going someplace. What are you going to do
now? Run me over? Go ahead, I need the money. We never honked like
that. We just honked at our friends.
I took a left. The big
ol' National Commercial Bank and Trust was moved out and it was now
offices. Their parking lot replaced the liquor store. Then I passed
the small building where my dentist was and that was offices. No
dentist. Good. I hated going there. I didn't like the sound the
drill made.
Finally, I arrived at Don & Paul's Coffee
Shoppe. I pulled open the familiar old wooden door. It is familiar
because it used to be Michon's store. Michon sold newspapers and
magazines, but also had a good selection of comic books and penny
candy. Walk into Michon's with a few quarters and you were set for
the day.
I remember Mr. Michon well. He had the
patience of a saint as we kids would line up by his front window and
select our penny candy which was displayed prominently to entice
passing kids to stop in. He'd stand by the window that had the candy
on display in small bowls, little brown paper bag in hand.
“I'll take two of those,” I'd say,
pointing. “And three of those... no, two of those...”.
This was an important decision. It was
our candy for the day.
While one of us was selecting candy,
the others surveyed the comic book racks. As kids, we didn't have to
make too many choices, but candy and comic books ranked at the top.
Those were fun times. I wonder if they still make penny candy? It's
probably dime candy now.
“Mr. Gibson? Are you OK,” asked
Kayla, a waitress.
“Uh, oh. Fine. I'm fine,” I said as I
snapped out of my daydream.
“Sit anywhere you like.”
I
hung my jacket and cap up on a hook and took a seat at the counter,
off to the right. The tables are on the left, but everyone sat at
the counter. I stood my cane up, leaning it against the next stool.
This used to be the area where tobacco was sold, I recalled. Now it
had grills, cooks, and a lunch counter. Why can't things just stay
as they were? It's progress, they'd say. Who reads newspapers
anymore? Or comic books? Everything is done online. And tobacco?
Hardly anyone smokes anymore. I quit myself in 1975 when my daughter
was a year old, and I had just read an article about second hand
smoke.
“It's always something,” Gilda Radner famously
said. She died.
Died. Many of my friends and schoolmates
have passed over the years. Some killed in war, some in accidents,
some from disease... it's always something.
Back in the old days, as a kid, I don't
remember giving death much thought. You have to die of something, my
mom once told me. You might as well smoke. She died from a disease
thought to be caused by smoking, it turned out.
Everyone
smoked. All of the grownups. All of the big kids. So we smaller
kids started smoking in our teens. You were supposed to be eighteen
to buy cigarettes, but not at the ginney store. And you could even
buy cigarettes out of vending machines back in the old days. A
quarter a pack. Now I hear that some places charge ten dollars a
pack. Imagine that.
Adults drank, at least on weekends and
holidays when visiting friends and family. So we kids started buying
beer from the ginney store in our teens as well. We couldn't wait to
grow up and be eighteen and could sit in bars. Sometimes underage
kids would make fake identification cards. They'd go to the photo
booth at Woolworths where you'd get five photos for twenty-five cents
and cut one out and glue to the ID drawn by a kid good at art. Then
put a silver dollar under it and whack it with a wooden mallet to
stamp it. If you didn't look close, it looked like a notary stamp.
Where there's a will, there's a way.
We were in a big rush to be adults.
Now I wonder why? You'd think we'd be happy being children. What's
the rush? Life seemed so simple back then. It seemed like a
carefree time to live. We didn't have a worry in the world except
for Jimmy, the neighborhood bully. Just candy and comic books for
the most part. Sometimes cigars.
I glanced out the big front
window that used to display the penny candy. There was an antique
car pulling up to the curb outside. A car show in the middle of the
week? Early in the morning? It looked like a mid-fifties Chevy. A
young guy got out. I chuckled. He was dressed for the part. I
owned a 1956 Thunderbird that I would show and I'd sometimes dress
the part too. He was good. He looked like he belonged in that car.
He even had a flat-top DA. Where do you get one of those haircuts
now? Where do you even get a barber now?
I turned as my
breakfast arrived. I got the same thing every morning. Two eggs
over easy, home fries, toast, and coffee. Cheap enough at $5. Plus
walking to the village gave me a little exercise. I enjoyed the
walk. I didn't go in inclement weather and had to fend for myself,
which I don't do well. A bowl of granola was the best I could
manage. Sure, I can fry eggs. I used to. But now that I'm alone,
it doesn't seem worth the effort.
I looked around the coffee shop. I
didn't see anyone I knew. Of course, the people that I knew were all
fifty years older now, so I doubt I'd recognize them. Or they me. I
know some of my friends never moved from Waterford and this was one
of the few places to get breakfast in the village. Why they stayed,
I have no idea. There was nothing for them here.
I ate my
breakfast. Eggs and home fries probably aren't good for you. It
will clog up your arteries. But you have to die of something. My
mom died of pancreatic cancer. It wasn't a good way to go. Since I
quit smoking, I'm entitled to clog stuff.
I took my paper napkin and placed
it on the plate over the home fries I couldn't finish. I waved Kayla
over for my check. Did she change clothes and do something with her
hair?
“Here ya go, hun,” said Kayla,
setting my check face down on the counter.
“Thank you
Kayla,” I said.
“Who? My name is Mary.”
Mary? My memory is getting bad with
the years, especially after my accidents and two concussions, but I
could swear her name was Kayla. I must be losing it.
“Sorry,”
I stammered. “My mistake. Old age and all, ya know.”
Kayla
or Mary or whatever her name is smiled and turned to wait on other
customers.
I looked at the green check that had
“Thank You” printed in cursive across the top. Do they still
teach cursive in school? I heard they don't. The total was $1.25.
I waved the waitress back over.
“Mary, there's something wrong with
my check.”
“Oh, I'm sorry hun. Here, let me see it.”
I
handed it back to her.
“What's wrong with it?” she asked
sweetly.
“Shouldn't that be five dollars?”
“For
eggs, toast, home fries, and coffee?” she asked, somewhat taken
aback.
“Yes... isn't that what I pay every
morning?” I asked.
“Oh God no, honey. Are you thinking
of dinner?”
“Uh... yeah, that must be it,”
I said as I handed Mary my debit card.
“What's this?” asked Mary.
“My debit card.”
Mary made a
face. I thought I always paid with my debit card. I dug into my
pocket and fished out a dollar twenty-five in change, and left a
dollar bill next to my plate.
As I shuffled towards the door, I
looked back. Mary was holding my dollar bill and looking at it. It
must be a big tip for such a little bill, I thought.
I retrieved my jacket and cap and put
them on. I looked back as I went out the door. Mary was holding the
dollar and staring at it.
“Hey Paul,” she said. “Look at
this dollar. Its got colors. Is it Canadian?”
As I stepped outside, I felt the cold
air hit my neck. I turned up the collar. Hey. This isn't my
jacket. I must have grabbed the wrong one. I went back inside. The
coat hooks were empty.
I guess I'll have to wear this piece of
crap, I thought to myself. Someone must have taken mine by mistake.
As I turned up the collar a bit more, I noticed that it was wool and
not fleece. I looked at the sleeve. It was maroon, not tan like my
jacket. It had buttons. How could I have made a mistake like this?
This sort of reminds me of the CPOs we wore as kids. CPO stood for
Chief Petty Officer. I still knew that, but that's as far as it
went.
I tried to tug my cap down. As I felt for the brim...
it wasn't there. My cap was gone. Damn! It must have blown off. I
looked around and didn't see it.
But look at all of the
classic cars! The little village downtown was full of them! Why?
There can't be a car show on a weekday. Maybe it's Saturday or
Sunday. Being retired, I lose track of what day it is sometimes.
Not working, the day of the week doesn't matter anymore. Just like
when we were kids on summer vacation. The only day that mattered was
Saturday for the morning cartoons.
