Columbus Day...or Indigenous Peoples Day 2022...running some errands on a glorious October afternoon...we found ourselves having lunch at Center Coffee Shop in Plainview...decades ago, I was there many a time...meeting Nassau County friends when I lived out in Dix Hills...unglamorous was being kind...noisy was being understated...but, your kid could impale themselves on the dirty floor in the back screaming...or drop seventy-five fries on the floor and who would care?...today, it was relatively crowded...and they were woefully unprepared for this...perhaps they forgot it was a holiday...but we shrugged it off...only one waitress...gave us menus...disappeared...we felt bad...there were so many tables of orders...we ended up yelling our order to the cook behind the counter...when the waitress came back everything was in reverse...cleaned the table under the menus...slapped down napkins...a few minutes later silverware...it was like a scene in a movie...played out between the gleeful hello's from everyone who came in...they all knew the cooks...the woman at the register...and each other...in today's hurried, large world, there is a sweetness to this...and the conversations...the older couple behind me...ordering a salad...the waitress shouting to the cook...chop the salad...in another minute I expected to hear that old scene from vintage Saturday Night Live..."cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger"...then a friend of theirs paused to chat en route to his table..."hey, kid, how are you doing?" "I go into Mt. Sinai next week"...now, we all knew...but the bacon was crisp, the iced coffee just right, and Mike's fries...yeah, I stole a few...crispy...well then, the diet starts tomorrow...and I thought...I will not wait this long again to stop in... and I'll have my sandwich with a side of sweet memories...
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