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There is a café in our town
called the Silver Spur. Can't remember when it was first opened. Seems
like most of my life time it has always been there. All around the Silver
Spur was a wide gravel drive big enough to allow the lonely, hard driving,
truck drivers to swing into the space with no slowing down of their big
rigs. Somewhere in the progression of time the interstate went through and
most of the big rigs don't go through here anymore. A few deliver to the
small isolated areas but not many, so now around the eatery is mostly an
open gravel drive.
Today, the image of the
redneck in a broken down pick-up truck has been replaced by the sharp
shining trucks parked at an angle and up close to the double doors on the
east and the west of the entry. The new truck glosses over what is still a
personality going back to one can only guess how far.
“Howdy Pete, consarn yer
hide, whar yah been?” “I ain't seen you in a coon's age.”
“Yeah? Oh yeah, I reckin yer
right on that.”
“How you bean anyhow?”
“Ah ahrite, aaahrite, cain't
complain. Me and the Misses we're doin' ahrite.”
“You still hooked up with
that ornery gal. I'll swar, she's got to be the meanest woman thar ever
was.”
“Yep, yep. Shore as the
world she is.” This response made with a grinning expression spoke more than
words.
As that small crowd took
their place in a booth next to the wide window directly behind them came
another party and they were acquainted with those who were exchanging
hello's. Their grins were equally as wide and they had an expression on
their face to make one believe they knew some great secret.
“I see you got your youngun's
with yu this evenin.” The man who was already sitting in a booth also
called out to the newest arrivals.
“Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.” A
wide smile on all their faces said these people had finished a days work and
were ready to sink into the soft booths while they ordered their evening
meal. The “younguns” were not that young and looked to be in their middle
twenties.
“Ar' you kids workin' or goin'
tah school?”
The girl turned around from her place where she was already seated. “We are
in school. We're going to vo-tech.”
The friendly acquaintance
dipped his head as was a customary way of expressing an Oklahoma agreement.
“You like it thar?”
“Oh yeah! We do, we like it,
we really like it.”
That group settled in and
they were looking over the menu when a young woman came in alone. Her medium
blond hair was just to her shoulders and was styled in a becoming way. She
was past the bloom of youth but still had a girlish look about her. A soft
colored T-shirt over a pair of denim jean shorts gave on lookers a
pleasant knowledge this girl was blessed with lovely long legs. In another
world she would have had a classy look about her.
“Hi Dad.” The woman gave
everyone the knowledge the man setting at one of the western looking tables
was her father.
If the man spoke to her no
one heard him, in fact all the time the girl was visiting with him her voice
was audible but his wasn't.
He pushed the newspaper
toward her with what was obviously the want ad section. In turn she looked
at him with an expression showing surprise. Whether the shock was from her
father showing her the paper or if it was from what was there. She flopped
the paper over to close it with a definite gesture of defiance.
“She won't hire me. I've
already tried.”
The girl's father made no
comment as he pulled the paper back over to his place.
Maybe the suggestion of an
unpleasant situation while her father was in front of her triggered the
woman's anxiety. She was speaking to her father but in the small room of
obviously well acquainted folks her speech carried all over.
“Well, they pulled a clothes'
hanger on my son today.”
Of course, we in our
ignorance, had not a clue of what she spoke but there were those of our
age who didn't either. “What's that?” One of the older men asked.
“You know. When a kid is
running down the hall you hold out your arm really stiff and he runs into to
it at neck level. It knocked him all the way to the floor.”
The older patron studied the
woman as he asked, “Who did that? Was it a coach or a teacher?”
“No, it wasn't anyone working
there. They had no name tag with their name on it. It wasn't enough that
they knocked him down but the man reached down, jerked my son up and slammed
him against the lockers. I'll be up there in the morning at eight and I
better not find out it was a parent who did it.”
There was a silence to fall
over the group that once had been so jovial. Everyone spoke in muted voices
and nothing more was said about the incident. The hush over the place was a
sudden change from what had been a light-hearted group.
On their way home I had to
make the observation to my husband. “Isn't it strange as to how we can be
only a couple miles from home and all at once in a totally different world?” |
