The chicken ranks right up there with the Cheez-It meatballs.
Andy and Jack on move-in day, summer 2007.
Unlike Andy, once I left home for college, I didn’t return home for the summers. After my freshman year, I stayed in Buffalo, attended summer school (to make up for my disastrous fall semester), and worked fulltime at Gleason's Restaurant, a “Big Boy”-type establishment. I did a lot of walking that summer – 15 minutes to the campus (located at Main & Bailey in my day) every weekday morning to attend a French class (plus the walk back to the apartment I subletted with a roommate I rarely saw because of my busy schedule) and 30 minutes to the restaurant (usually, but not always, managing to catch a ride home with one of my fellow workers). I had the full experience at Gleason’s: starting out as a busboy (clearing tables with speed and efficiency), then a dishwasher (my least favorite activity, but the manager wanted someone who could work uncomplainingly fast), fountain server (getting drink and ice cream orders ready for the waitresses; Gleason’s didn’t serve alcohol), carhop set-up person (taking orders over the speaker-phone system and then shouting them out to the grill line; getting the trays ready for delivery), and, ultimately, grill cook (where, during the course of the extended dinner rush, with as many as 30 beef patties sizzling in unison, my glasses repeatedly became speckled with tiny grease spots. Imagine how much oil my face absorbed during the course of an 8-hour shift.)
I spent a few weeks at home at the end of a foreshortened sophomore year. Classes ended at least a week early at UB and many other college campuses that spring when things went all surreal, thanks to the Nixon administration’s decision to escalate the war in Vietnam with the invasion of Cambodia.
May 4. Four students shot to death by National Guard troops at Kent State University. (Later research would uncover the fact that there was indeed an order to shoot: “Right here, get set, point, fire!”)
May 15. Two deaths result when police open fire on students on the campus of Jackson State University in Mississippi. (Actually, one of the victims was a high school student walking home from his grocery-store job.)
And what was my biggest concern at the time? Setting up my stereo components as soon as Dad and I made the return trip from Buffalo. And maybe throwing a mild fit when, temporarily, I couldn’t get any sound out of one of the speakers. (Oh well, we all have our quirks).
I spent the summer in Minneapolis with Mardi, a friend from high school, and Bill, her extremely likeable but alcoholic boyfriend, landing a maintenance job at the downtown Dayton’s Department Store within a few days of my arrival. Bill worked as a route manager for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. By early July, I was covering for him once or twice a week when he was too drunk to drive – or talk coherently or even sit up on his own. I’d leave the apartment at 5 a.m., drive Bill’s car to South St. Paul, and deliver papers on a route for which he had been unable to find a carrier. More often than not, I’d been up all night reading anyway.
In the summer of 1970, Bill hung out with a group of friends for whom drinking was a religion and drugs were still taboo. (That’s changed a couple of years later, when Bill decided to serve two masters, at which point Mardi dumped him.) Fortunately, I worked 5-6 nights per week from 5:00 until 10:00 or 9:00 until 1:00, depending upon when Dayton’s closed. And what a great place to work. At the time, Dayton’s was still determined to be all things to all shoppers, offering a vast array of merchandise on its 8 sprawling floors. I developed the habit of arriving to work early and just wandering around the store to my heart’s content. It seems that I always ended up in the music department, though, where I contentedly browsed the album bins contemplating my next purchase.
[Here's a sample of what I listened to that summer: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
I stayed in Buffalo for the first two months after my junior year, though I hitchhiked the 90 miles to Warren three or four times, always making pretty good time via my thumb. Then in late July, I responded to the subliminal messages of the Beach Boys’ “California Girls”, the Mamas and Papas’ “California Dreamin’”, the Rivieras’ “California Sun”, and perhaps even Lesley Gore’s “California Nights” and checked out the place for myself. It started out as quite an adventure for the three of us who traveled together – 7 days on the road at a time when you saw hitchhikers at nearly every Interstate entrance ramp (and back then people actually stopped to pick up three people at a time, believe it or not) and 7 days of crashing on the beach just south of Laguna with nearly 20 other Kerouac disciples, most of whom, eerily, hailed from western New York, northwestern Pennsylvania, and northeastern Ohio.) I developed the feeling of being completely untethered. It’s a time I still recall with a sense of wonder and amazement, particularly in light of the fact that I dropped out of college for a semester to soak up the atmosphere. I am forever thankful, though, that I managed to reconnect myself to reality, as I had no future there with an incomplete education. I certainly wouldn’t have been content working in restaurants and living in cheap motels for the rest of my life.
Nevertheless -- just to be sure, I suppose -- I returned to Laguna Beach from Buffalo for an idyllic, sun-soaked summer after the first semeseter of my senior year (January-May 1972), hitchhiking on my own this time. (Easiest trip ever: I received a ride from someone delivering a Winnebago RV from Iowa to California. He wanted someone to help him drive, and I was happy to oblige.) The owners of the Cottage Restaurant, where I had previously worked, were happy to rehire me as I had been a steady, calming force in the kitchen during the late afternoon and evening hours of operation.
By early July, though, I had developed a love/hate relationship with my situation. I loved the beautiful setting and the serene, almost constant sound of the ocean surf – not to mention the daily excursions to the beach, a two-block walk from the apartment I shared with two other Cottage employees. The camaraderie among the evening restaurant staff created a easy-going, wise-cracking atmosphere straight out of a TV sitcom. But all too often I found myself unable to full enjoy the moment. It was as if Peggy Lee was following me around while singing “Is That All There Is”.
Paul's workplace: August-November 1971 and June-August 1972: two views.
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