Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Rolls with Butter and Plums
I like dishing out the green beans.
At the meal program tonight, I was the second server in the dinner line. The first server was a guy from a local church who wrangled huge helpings of the church’s trademark ham and cheese casserole like the experienced ladler he was.
The third person in the serving line was a gal (I call her a gal because my hunch is that is what she would call herself) who was super cheerful and very chatty. She talked about apple crumb pie being superior to traditional apple pie and how hideous it was that politicians were screwing around with SNAP benefits. She doled out the rolls, a wrapped pat of butter, and a plum. “I’ve never seen plums that color,” she said. “Just purple ones.”
Next to her was the pie man, also her husband. He kept pushing pumpkin pie, but people wanted apple. We joked that the pumpkin pie would be devoured if there had been whipped cream.
Way down the line were the students from a local high school who handed out silverware, napkins, and coffee mugs. My son, across the room, handled the clicker. It was his idea that we volunteer. We’ve served meals together before. Tonight was the same. People in need glad for dinner, very mellow in attitude, not a lot of conversation, just pleasantness all around.
That’s why I like serving up green beans. It’s so simple and pleasant.
Before the serving, we opened forty cans of green beans, watched the cook work her magic with them, made about fifty sandwiches, wiped down tables and chairs, and swept the floor. We stood in a circle while the people from the church said a prayer. We wore plastic aprons and hairnets like my grandmother used to wear.
On the way home, we stopped at a gas station to buy milk. A couple came into the station while my son was paying but the guy at the register told them to leave. They were young and so obviously homeless. “Not tonight, you guys. You can’t use the bathroom tonight.” That’s what my son told me the gas station guy said to them. And then the couple started crossing the street, in heavy traffic, with bags slung over their shoulders.
At home, the news was talking about the latest national travesty. Experts were called on to count the angels on the head of a pin, their long titles played out on the chyron at the bottom of the screen. I am tired of them. I am more interested in green beans and how the guy next to me could put such enormous piles of casserole on each person’s tray, the muscle and confidence that took. And whether the couple turned away from the gas station found somewhere else to relieve themselves and whether they’ll come to the meal program tomorrow.
I won’t know. I just signed up for tonight.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
Your description and details of the way “it is,” catch my heart/soul (or whatever it’s called) faster and more profoundly than the NYT news articles.
THANKS, JAN!