Frostburg Part 2
My talk went well. There were a lot of questions when I finished and positive comments before I left.
I’m always so relieved when a presentation is finished.
We hadn’t eaten breakfast so I kept watch for a diner as we headed north for home. We were in the rural section of Maryland, then a very rural stretch in Pennsylvania. Finally, I spotted a garage which had Jackie’s Cafe and General Store attached to it.
There was nothing around but fields and little rolling mountains. When you find a diner attached to a garage, you are missing something in life if you don’t stop.
We entered a small general store with the usual shelves of junk food, candies and glass cases filled with Pepsi, Gatorade and five kinds of bottled water. We moved through an open door into the dining area.
We sat down at a table, brushed off the crumbs, forcing angry flies to move somewhere else. I glanced around. Five farmers from two generations sat at a long table eating huge burgers and plates of fries. Several wore baseball caps that were melded onto their heads. It was a saggy, comfortable look.
A large, oval white haired man with glasses and gentle blue eyes stared far away into the spot where the wall meets the ceiling directly across from him. He didn’t move.
Another couple walked in. The man was about 6 ft. 5 in and maybe 250 pounds. His female partner was 6 ft. 1 in. and maybe 175 pounds. They were rough inside and out but good-hearted, you could tell.
There was no music, just the sound of people talking in southern Pennsylvania accents. Leigh and I have traveled the country many times and I’ve found that in diners, people all talk about the same things: their kids, the weather, crops, health, politics.
We’re all unique, but we have more in common than we’d like to believe.
Everyone in the diner wore jeans or shorts, t-shirts, and everyone seemed worn by the weather and life.
Leigh wore a beige top and slacks. I was in frayed Dockers (yes I made a presentation to colleagues in worn, frayed Dockers. Nobody, even PR people paid to notice details, ever looks down at your ankles) and a dress shirt open at the collar.
No one paid attention to us.
A young waitress took our order. For detail freaks, on the road I always order a breakfast of two eggs, scrambled, sausage, wheat toast and Tabasco sauce. Leigh has two eggs over easy, bacon, wheat toast and one pancake. This never varies.
When we finished, I took the check to the general store counter where the young waitress was also manning the cash register.
“So where are you from?” She asked with the air of a young person desperately wanting to get out of her rural area where people still talk about what happened 50 years ago and judge people by what they did 25 years ago.
“Do we look like we’re not from around here?” I asked innocently.
She shrugged and nodded and I told her. She told me to have a nice day and I think she meant it. I wanted to talk to her and tell her she needed to leave and explore the country and her life and then maybe come back and appreciate her home and contribute to it, but we were just passing through.
We had our breakfast and she had her life.
Outside I took a picture and we drove off.
Our lives, and hers, continue on as they’re supposed to.