jumpingfish

1. Double Takes

When he walked up the to table, the waiter looked to Trudy. She was still looking at the menu, so he turned to me. And when he saw me, he did a little bit of a double take and then smiled and nodded in the slight way he always has.

He was a busboy when I started eating at El Patio more than 25 years ago. They have a pecking order in that place, and back then he was on the ground floor. But in the long time that has passed, the senior waiters from back then have retired, and now he is one of them. We don’t know each other by name, but we know each other by sight. And so when he smiled and nodded, he also said “Hello” in a way that said “It’s good to see you again.”

I said hello in return.

And then he looked at Ben and did another double take and then a triple take as his eyes widened and his mouth opened and he said, “Oh my.”

Ben smiled.

Clearly he recognized Ben, who has been eating there literally all his life. “Oh my,” he said, “hello!”

He turned back to me with a wide eyed look on his face as if to say… And he didn’t need to say it.

“We’re getting old, man,” I said.

He nodded and smiled.  “Yes we are.”

2. Saltines

When I paid the bill at the cash register, I leaned forward and asked David a question I’ve wanted to ask for a while.

“Tell me, why did you switch to chips from saltines?” (A Tex-Mex restaurant with saltines instead of chips always struck us as odd, although we did like them with the butter that David’s dad had out on the tables.)

He smiled and handed me my change. “The cost. They raised the cost of a box of them on me, so I switched to chips.”

“To be honest, I kind of like the chips better,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “It worked out better all around.”

“It’s been a while,” I said. “How long has it been since you switched, a few years?”

“Fourteen years.”

Sheesh.

There’s a place on the south side of the lake where the water sits after a rain. Up on the hill, the rains run off the fields and pool around the trunks of the trees and cover the broken branches fallen from above.

Most of the time the place is dry. (It sure has been for the past several years.) But we had good rain this spring, and more than an inch fell this morning, so that place is full of water today.

From the trail that runs beside that place, I saw the muddy water. And I heard the trickle of the sometime stream that runs under the dike and down to the lake on the other side. And it made me think of a time long ago during what must have been another rainy year when I ran past that very spot and looked down on that very place and heard that very stream and saw a turtle in the water.

I’ve wondered about that turtle thru the years — how it fares when the rains don’t come, how it must climb up the embankment and cross the trail to make for the lake. I’ve wondered about that turtle.

And so as I walked past that place today, I peered thru the trees and underbrush down to where the water was and searched for the turtle.

Of course I didn’t see it.  I didn’t see it, but I know it was there.

He’s back from college and hasn’t driven a car in a long time—certainly not a standard.  So a little practice was in order.  Driving here, driving there.  Going to get something to eat, going to the hardware store.

So we’re in the car, and he’s at the wheel.  And it’s a new car.  (Yes, I got a new car, but that’s a separate story.)  He’s changing lanes, checking the mirrors, speeding up, slowing down, upshifting, downshifting.

“Man dad,” he says.  “This car is so quiet.  It runs so smoothly.  I can barely hear the engine!”

He changes gears and looks down at the tachometer.

“Wow!  Look at the RPMs.  Below 2000!”

He shifts again and repeats his exclamation.

“Wow!”

Now, Ben knows that I don’t fall in love with my cars.  A typical car of mine will get—what—20 washings in its entire lifetime, fewer vacuumings. I don’t grow attached to them, and he knows it.  So these exclamations can’t be indirect compliments aimed at me; they must be authentic amaze. I smile as he talks about the RPMs and about how other cars run higher and louder and don’t have a sixth gear. (Yes, it’s a six-speed.)

Then it strikes him.

“Oh dad,” he says.  “We’re having a typical father/son talk.  We’re talking about RPMs and gear shifting and how the engine’s running just like fathers and sons should.”

Kind of scary, that.

They’re finally showing the oil gushing forth live. Seems that more’s coming out than what they’ve been saying.