fast food?

THE BIG LIE – “FAST FOOD” 

A Few weeks ago I took three of my grandchildren, Jake –5, Hannah- 3 and Abby – 2, to MacDonald’s for lunch. It was the day Jake and Hannah’s sister Callie was born; my part in the process was to watch the kids while my daughter, Wendy, was at the hospital. I sat at the table trying to entertain the antsy threesome while Abby’s mother, Kelly, waited in line for our “fast food” order. It was the longest thirty minutes of my life. I like going to MacDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and all the rest of the fast food restaurants, but I think it’s time that they admit the obvious, and stop referring to themselves as “fast.” Fast applies to the service at Harris’s Diner; a small locally owned restaurant, housed in a cramped Quonset hut next to the fire station in Owego, the village where I live. It doesn’t provide customer parking, special menu items for kid or an indoor playground, yet it beats the pants off the international fast food chains.

I’m not a regular at Sam Harris’s diner; I only stop by every week or so for breakfast. Once in a while I wander in at six am; it doesn’t open until seven. The lights are down low and Sam isn’t around, but there are customers hanging out at the counter and at tables in the back, drinking coffee, shooting the breeze and reading the paper. The coffee urns are full. The “regulars” made it. At 6:45 Sam comes in, trades insults with a few of the rabble and goes in the back room to do some prep work. I sit at the counter with a choice seat near the grill, a cup of coffee before me, having been served by one of the gracious regulars. Sam flicks on the lights and fires up the grill. He starts things in motion by piling on a mountain of home fries and a dozen strips of bacon. He knows what the regulars want. Hazel, Sam’s faithful waitress, comes in at seven on the dot, ready to wait tables and bus the dirty dishes, a tough job for a gal well past retirement age, but one she does with class and a big smile.

I sit with my coffee and watch the show. I don’t think there is anything more entertaining than a good grill man, and Sam is one of the best. He’s cracking eggs with one hand, flipping pancakes with the other and discussing last night’s Yankee game with a customer across the room. Regulars stream in, trade insults back and forth, head for the rack of coffee pots behind the counter and help themselves, some using their very own personalized cups stored on a shelf above the pots. Hazel glides around exchanging pleasantries and taking orders, but Sam takes mine, since I’m right behind him. The average time between giving your order and getting it is less than five minutes. In my case, sitting at the counter, I get my two eggs over light, home fries, ham and toast in three. This is fast food. Hazel drops of the check when the food is served. You never have to wait for her to get around to it, like in most restaurants. A pile of bills and change lie in a heap next to the cash register. Customers settle up themselves, making change and leaving the meal ticket as they pass the register on their way out. The “regulars” even go so far as to open Sam’s cash register when they can’t make correct change from the pile of cash on the counter. It sure beats watching a corporate cloned “co-worker” at MacDonald’s scanning a computerized cash register for a picture of French fries so he can tally up your order.

Yes, I definitely think we should stop referring to purveyors of food cooked an hour earlier and kept warm, as the fast food industry. We should call them the “warmed up leftover” industry. I guess I think that because I’m just an old coot.

first old coot essay

This is the first old coot article ever published. December 2004 in the Tioga (NY) County Courier.

INVASION OF THE LADDER PEOPLE

If you walk down the pleasant streets of Owego, you’ll notice a proliferation of ladders leaning against historic clapboard homes. At first blush, you might think the homeowners of our quaint village are an ambitious lot, tackling one restoration project or another on their 150 year-old houses. You’d be wrong!

I stroll through town every morning, on a meandering route to Dunkin Donuts or the Awakenings Coffee House and back home again, sipping coffee and listening to Imus on my Walkman. I do an inventory of the projects underway in the village, mostly looking for techniques to keep my 197 year-old house in good repair with minimal effort. I’ve learned that the ladders are props, a last ditch effort by the male occupants of the dwelling against which they lean to avoid a job that’s been held off for two years or more. And, husbands are not the only ones guilty of this rouse. Many home repair contractors employ the same tactic.

Husbands resort to this “ladder-lean” strategy at the end of a protracted domestic conversation that goes something like this.

(September, year 1) - “Honey, the east side of the house is starting to peel. Do you think you should paint it before it gets worse?”

“Yea, I guess. But, I don’t want to do it till spring. Why have the new paint face six months of bad weather?”

(April, year 1) – “Honey, are you going to start painting the house?”

“Yea, but it’s too damp and cold. I’ll get to it when it warms up a little.”

(May, year one) – “ The weather looks good now honey; are you going to start painting?”

“Yea, but not till after Memorial Day.”

(June, year one) – “Honey, Memorial Day has passed. Why don’t you get cooking?”

“ I want to wait till the kids get out of school. The school busses spew out a ton of diesel soot starting and stopping in the neighborhood; it will ruin the finish.”

July – too hot.

August – too muggy.

September – after Labor Day.

October – too cold at night; the paint won’t dry properly.

(May- year two) – “Honey, the house is a disgrace! The paint is coming off in bushel basketsful. I’m embarrassed to go out and get the mail!”

“I’m on it babe. I just need a few weeks to figure out what supplies I’ll need to get it done. You don’t want me to do a slip-shod job do you?”

(June – year two) – “Honey, the kids can’t play in the yard anymore and there are so many paint chips on the lawn that the dog refuses to leave the house. Are you going to paint the house or do I have to call a professional?”

“I’m starting it this weekend. Jeesh, give me a break, would you!”

On Saturday a ladder gets placed against the east side of the building. The project has officially begun, but other than setting up the ladder, no actual work has taken place. A new line of dialog begins; the ladder buys another year of inaction, two if the husband is a clever old coot.

A similar exchange takes place between homeowners and home-improvement contractors, but the game is initiated with a sign, not a ladder. The second the contractor gets the job he puts his sign in front of the house, announcing, “Another quality remodeling job by Cracker-Jack & Sons Inc.” The sign is the only activity for two months, in spite of twenty heated phone calls from the homeowner. Then, the ladder ploy is used; followed a month later by scaffolding and miscellaneous equipment. At the peak of the conflict, the contractor arranges for lumber to be delivered, usually in a manner that blocks the driveway. This trick is designed to prevent the homeowner from hiring a new contractor. It takes two letters from an attorney before a single board is cut. The job then goes forward in spurts: three days of intense activity, two weeks of no activity, sixteen angry phone calls, and a repeat of the pattern until completion.

There are many variations of this construction-delaying tactic: blue tarps on roofs, an “X” taped on a broken window, three rows of new siding installed; it’s running rampant in many towns across America. Psychologists call it “male performance deficiency syndrome.” I call it, “The Invasion of the Ladder People.” Take a walk through your town. You’ll see what I mean. 

More to come