Breakfast With Old People May 3, 2008

Oh my gosh, I just came back from the funnest breakfast I’ve had in a long long time.

See, you know I’ve told you that my friends are not of any particular age group, and I have one dearly beloved man friend who is 93 years old. I’ve known him for about 4 years and he’s absolutely one of the coolest and funniest people I’ve ever met.

He’s also one of the most inspiring. Not only because he’s had a fascinating life - he had his pilot’s license and own plane back before that was very commonplace at all - but he’s also been kicked harder by the vagaries of life than most regular people could imagine. With some of the stuff that has happened in his life, through none of his own fault, you would expect him to be on Jerry Springer, or at the very least Dr. Phil, telling the world the why’s and wherefore’s of his bitterness and depression.

And yet, this guy has none of that. He’s cheerful as hell, concerned about everyone, finds something to laugh about at least twenty times a day. Oh - and he loves me to death. Which of course makes him aces in my book.

So anyway, yesterday we concocted the idea that we would go out and have breakfast together, and while I refused to go at 7 am, which is when he normally has breakfast and when I normally am fumbling for the prybar to get my eyes open, we did compromise on eight and agreed to head to the local teeny tiny wooden floor grocery store, which has done some very smart value added marketing by offering breakfasts and lunches.

Oh, kids, turns out “Dean’s” is the place to be on a Saturday morning, and I laughed myself silly.

When you walk in, there is one long table that is encircled by “the guys”. The old farmers who come in and have coffee and sit there for hours and hours discussing the weather and God knows what else. I say “God knows” because, believe me, a woman daresn’t (”daresn’t” is a small town Midwestern word) go over there. You can stop by and say hello - and you better - but it is strictly verboten for a woman to sit there.

Then you have the long table where all the old ladies sit. They meet regularly, it seems, on Saturday mornings for breakfast. Regularly enough that the waittress knows what each woman orders and just brings it, unbidden. They talk about everyone in town, who’s had what surgery and God knows what else. I say “God knows” because, although I did sit there unknowingly, I knew they wouldn’t get to the good and juicy gossip until I left.

And then there are two or three smaller tables where the younger folks go - the middle aged ones like me with their spouses or their grandkids they’ve kept overnight.

So my buddy and I walk in, head to the second table, and lo and behold, before we even ordered, we were descended upon by a flock of older women, who hadn’t seen my friend out and about in a long time. Kids, I tell ya, you could almost hear the soft twitter of excitement.

I knew most of them too - they come visit where I work, and some have been there for rehab stints.

So we just had a grand old time. My buddy and I would look at each other from time to time laughing at something. I swear to God it will be all over town by church tomorrow that he and I had a date this morning.

The old ladies would mutter to each other in German phrases. Hey, girls, I’ve worked with your age group long enough to understand a lot of that, OK?

And there are the inevitable geneology questions. “Who are your people, dear? Where are they from?” It took me a couple of years of those questions to realize that when they were asked, they weren’t asking where I had lived in the last ten years or so. They wanted to know family tree type stuff - and country of ancestral origin. I’ve finally gotten it down to a few sentences that make them all nod approvingly. I am accepted. I will always be “an outsider”, but I am OK, I guess.

And we ate - oh Lord we ate! For a grand total of $7.75 for the two of us, including coffee, we waddled out of there like two stuffed hogs.

Then, of course, we had to drive around a little bit looking to see if the water had gone down. We’ve had some pretty spectacular flooding here in the last week or so. And he showed me the house he and his wife had lived in for forty years before she died.

I dropped him off and we promised to do it again sometime soon, and I really hope we do. He is a treasure I want to appreciate while he’s here - a gift God put in my life to remind me that my piddly little shit ain’t much at all.

And to remind me that I am loved.

What a nice, nice morning!