Jun
20
2012
I dump my coffee if it gets too cold or is older than an hour. My coffee pot has a timer on it. I have had fights over this. Of course, with my “other”. How can you waste coffee? In my defense, I only make an amount I can drink in an hour. It is funny, the things couples fight about. My first wife used to get really pissed. Maybe, that is why I am no longer married to her. Couples have broken up over less.
Dec
10
2010
I decided to be satisfied with my three small cups of coffee this morning. I still remember being in the hospital for two nights and requesting coffee with my meal. They gave me decaf. I drank it. Now I was home and could serve myself anything I wanted. I decided to be happy for the pleasure of making and serving myself morning coffee. It seemed like it took forever for my meal in the hospital to arrive. And someone (maybe a dietitian) decided real coffee was detrimental to my health. Oh, the pleasures of being home!
Sep
28
2009
I stood at the River’s banks. Usually after I had coffee and sometimes breakfast at the local diner on the way home I would stop at the bank of the River and gaze out at the surface of the water and the mountains. I never spent a long time there.
It has been several months since I was at this spot. The wind was blowing on the surface of water stirring it up. It was not too cold and not too warm. Rain clouds were in the distance.
Fall had come. There was a slight chill in the air although I really wasn’t cold yet. Coming here is always like entering another world. Sure I often pass the River from a distance but peering out from its shore is always a different experience.
Too much time had passed from my last visit. Now I no longer wanted to be here. It was a little uncomfortable although it still was a mild sixty-two degrees. I knew I would now only view the River from a distance until it got warmer again.
There was some regret: too much time had passed since my last visit. I had missed too much. Its face is always different: The lighting is always different on the sky, water and mountains and trees. Every visit. I now will await the warmer weather.
Jul
3
2009
Sharon, the waitress, at the local diner is more than a waitress. I found out she has worked there more than twenty years. It is her calling. She has on-going relationships with her customers.
She knows I often take my toast and give it to my dogs. Today she told me, “I do not give my dogs extra food for they get fat enough on just the dog food I feed them.” Not her exact words but a good paraphrase.
She is there (in the diner) for the long haul. She loves her job and lives nearby. I found out today her squash is not doing well in her garden. Their buds keep falling out prematurely. Maybe there was too much rain the last four weeks.
I am not extravagant with my tips but I tip accordingly; I give her a decent tip depending on my order. I want to let her know I appreciate her excellent service.
She is a one woman show, usually she is the only waitress on and there is one cook. In the early morning sometimes the waitress does every thing including cooking.
I eavesdrop on the conversations at the nearby tables. It is amazing sometimes what I overhear. Sometimes I do not talk at all. I always sit at the counter. Once in awhile I get into a brief conversation if someone sits nearby.
I keep returning to the diner for the coffee is good, the price of the food is inexpensive and the hash browns are always tasty and I enjoy the brief contact with the waitresses. My order is usually very simple. Eggs up. Once in awhile I order a glass of orange juice.
Of course I go to the trouble of learning all the different waitresses’ names. There is nothing like a local diner to make you feel wanted and erase some of the loneliness of the morning. My wife is never up at that hour.
Apr
24
2009
I love my local diner. For the first five and a half years I did not even set foot in it. It is a mere three miles from my house. Finally I started going there. I was waking up early and frankly was lonely. My wife was not up yet.
At first, I would just get a cup of coffee there. I was learning about the lives of the waitresses (I do not like the word server) in dribs and drabs. I learned that Sharon had almost worked there for thirty years. She loved what she did. And there was Jane and others whose lives I slowly entered.
They were making a living from serving me (and others) but it was more than that. They had running relationships with most of their customers. The local diner’s rules were pretty relaxed: I saw customers going in back of the counters and serving themselves coffee because the waitress was just too busy at the moment.
I would sit at the counter taking in all the conversations around me. You might say I was eavesdropping without being too obvious about it. I heard some big tales especially about hunting. This county shuts down when hunting season for deer starts the Monday after Thanksgiving. In fact, this state ranks two in the nation for bear hunting. Some of the tidbits and snatches of conversation I heard were fascinating.
I would not talk to too many people. I could tell some customers, particularly the men, were curious who I was. I would take my time, let them take me in. One waitress asked me if I had just moved here. It was only last summer when my town had their 200 year anniversary. I realized I had to do things a little differently if I wanted to meet people in this town.
I started watering the plants in the post office and gradually grew to know the postmaster and the other clerk: we became friends after a period of months. I would water the plants six days a week. And not only that, I would run into other people.
I started going to a local church where I felt very comfortable and met people in my community there. Going to the local diner was just another step in my involvement into the community.
Going to the diner had other ramifications: I would occasionally go to the the Susquehanna River which was less than an hundred yards away. I went there today and mist was rising in swirls from the surface of the water. It took my breath away. I have spent more time visiting the River in my town since I started going to the diner the last four weeks than in the first five and half years I have lived here. All because I am occasionally getting my morning coffee at my local diner.
It is an absolutely magnificent River. It is another world. You never know what you are going to see there. It could be a bald eagle or a great egret or some other exotic bird or creature. Usually when you least expect it. I missed having being able to walk to it which had been a five minute walk from my house in Duncannon. Now I am back. There are so many reasons visiting the diner has changed my life. Visiting The River is only one reason.
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