At the counter at the diner you might meet Joe. He’s only been here once before and is as affable as his puppy dog cheeks suggest. He’s from out of town, or grew up elsewhere for sure, the Mid West, you would guess. And you would be right. No matter, he will tell you soon enough. He’s russet neat and makes fun of himself for how much he loves his grandchildren, his hat–the one with the name his grandchildren call him by, “Poppy,” stitched on the back–his to grip as he explains why he left home a year ago to live in The East. He came to join his wife. She’s been here a year having following daughter number one (there are three), who married the perfect man and moved from corn country to Cambridge-ville two years ago with grandchild number five in tow. At the time grandchild number seven was on the way.
You may not be keeping track of the kids and the grand kids, but Joe is.
Daughter number one, a little older by the time of her second child, has all the right tests. Extra tests in fact. So the stroke her new son has mid delivery is a full on surprise, that “he’s not showing any brain activity” what the family extended learns on day one.
And now he is two years old. “That little guy breaks your heart every day,” Joe says.
Grandma, Joe’s wife, for whom Joe now waits, came out to celebrate and help with the new baby. A blessing. A ten day trip away from work and home and the two daughters and five other grand kids that consumed a good life. She’s been here ever since. Joe came out six months later.
Joe’s waiting for Grandma now because he lost his glasses. Again. It’s an age thing and a point of self mockery. Over the last forty years, he’s lost nothing so often as his glasses, the thing he needs most. Without them, says Poppy: I’m blind.
When she arrives, Beth is holding a large folder from work. She’s put herself through the management program of a local food chain and now, ten months later, manages one of their franchises. This means making sure every shift is covered and keeping the corporate office happy. At fifty-five she did not expect to be working so much, let alone so many uncompensated hours because, well, she only knows how to do a good job and because of the higher ups hold the line on costs by pre-determining how much work a person can do in an hour. Her staff, an unsurprising mix of local college kids who “don’t really need the job” and Hispanics “who work really hard” can never get done what is expected. So she covers for them. Working extra because her name is on the weekly report. She tells the college kids to miss a day for a party is finne, just that they should let her know, which mostly they do, though one just lied to her in a perfectly transparent way. Caught, he tried to lay it off on one of the a Hispanic workers, was incredulous Beth would “believe a dishwasher” over he.
She calls lies, “sassing the boss.”
With the commute (the real-estate market was too expensive for a working couple in need of an apartment right away to find anything close to the job) she must get up at 3:30 AM to open the franchise she manages. Joe gets up with her. “Farmer’s hours,” he laughs.
They are struck by all the Jews here, even if they have Jewish friends back home, even if the little guys father is Jewish. Mexican, black, gay, all come up in the conversation. Joe likes to label people and does not mind hearing (as a little local warning) that his tone and way of putting it will make some people miss construe a harmless heart. Everything is a stereotype, no one a target, no one to blame. That lesson goes back to the town of 4000 in which he grew up. “I am just an old potato farmer,” he says. My parents never said one mean or disparaging thing about anyone’s background or race or anything else,” he says, as his voice trails off into another smile.
After an hour, as after ten minutes, its easy to guess that on almost every legislative and moral issue to which the regulars here march left, Joe and Beth will march their own way. Joe’s mother was a teacher. She saw unions turn her occupation from one about working with kids into one about working for money. The only time she ever got mad, Joe claims, was when she talked about what happened to education in this country.
But the political talk never gets too far, clarity on where they actually stand on Congress or Obama or anything else that occupies the bulk of national chatter never comes up. This falls outside what matters: Finding better work, the grand kids, that little guy. Suffering unites, politics divide, and sharing with a stranger their tale of woe generates more laughs and-new friend ribbing than complaints about the powers that be or all the powers that be failing them, though remarks of self-pity won’t stand in this company.
Well, maybe one. In the year and a half since the little guys birth they have been home a single time, for Christmas. They get four days to do a year’s worth of activities.
And getting back on the plane to return East?
“That was hard,” Beth says, with a one time glint of tears, “that was hard.”
Time to go. The Diner is in rush mode. Joe and Beth look forward to a Sunday off. Monday its back to work and to the child care they moved here to take on. Beth will have to drive home of course, without the glasses he left there Poppy’s blind.