(no subject)
when i was younger i wrote this essay about how i know people by how they like their eggs, and how they know my name by the thank you i scribble on the back of their tickets. sometimes people ask how i'm doing, or if i'm irish, but usually we keep it pretty simple. there are people who have eaten at lou henri every weekend for the last three years, and though i can make them smile i don't know much else about their lives than what i see in those booths. sometimes they tell me that their grandchildren have red hair, too.
whenever i see the regulars around town we make eye contact, and say hello in a way as if we were almost friends. but our hellos are also unfamiliar because they are out of context. because i'm not pouring their coffee.
maybe i mentioned it here before, i can't remember. it used to bother me. i wanted to be known for something more than my apron.
at the time i wrote this essay i had missing seeing a man named richard, who hadn't stepped foot in the restaurant for months. it was one of those things where i began to check the obituaries. i had overhead someone saying that he used to conduct orchestras at the university, but in his old age he was losing his memory. his daughter would drop him off and he'd order bacon, repeatedly asking for our names. i think it was his outing.
i don't mean this in a sad way, now, this way of almost-knowing people.
i've been thinking about taking photographs of the regulars before i leave, whenever i find another job that justifies walking away from the tips. i'd like to put those faces in my book, as if we were friends. some people just have that way about them that makes you want to remember.
like virginia, who will return sometime when the ice melts. i have never met a woman so fabulous. a few of us used to keep a scratch piece of paper up on the bulletin board with the things she'd say - "one time i was crocheting and a friend came up to me and asked, what ya doing? and i'd say, oh, (k)nottin'." - but somebody threw it away. i miss how she'd lightly touch my wrist when i did something as simple as bring out her breakfast, always two eggs over easy. she'd make it seem like it was the best thing anybody could have done.
in a spare moment yesterday, i looked up lou henri on flickr yesterday. out of ten or so results, only one was of the restaurant itself. and there she was.
Virginia was a WAC in 1944. Photo at Lou Henri. She turned 85 last week.
Nancy Hauserman
whenever i see the regulars around town we make eye contact, and say hello in a way as if we were almost friends. but our hellos are also unfamiliar because they are out of context. because i'm not pouring their coffee.
maybe i mentioned it here before, i can't remember. it used to bother me. i wanted to be known for something more than my apron.
at the time i wrote this essay i had missing seeing a man named richard, who hadn't stepped foot in the restaurant for months. it was one of those things where i began to check the obituaries. i had overhead someone saying that he used to conduct orchestras at the university, but in his old age he was losing his memory. his daughter would drop him off and he'd order bacon, repeatedly asking for our names. i think it was his outing.
i don't mean this in a sad way, now, this way of almost-knowing people.
i've been thinking about taking photographs of the regulars before i leave, whenever i find another job that justifies walking away from the tips. i'd like to put those faces in my book, as if we were friends. some people just have that way about them that makes you want to remember.
like virginia, who will return sometime when the ice melts. i have never met a woman so fabulous. a few of us used to keep a scratch piece of paper up on the bulletin board with the things she'd say - "one time i was crocheting and a friend came up to me and asked, what ya doing? and i'd say, oh, (k)nottin'." - but somebody threw it away. i miss how she'd lightly touch my wrist when i did something as simple as bring out her breakfast, always two eggs over easy. she'd make it seem like it was the best thing anybody could have done.
in a spare moment yesterday, i looked up lou henri on flickr yesterday. out of ten or so results, only one was of the restaurant itself. and there she was.
Virginia was a WAC in 1944. Photo at Lou Henri. She turned 85 last week.
Nancy Hauserman