The Old Coot is in the slow lane

Go slow; live long. That’s my mantra. Just look to the turtle to see the truth in that. They lumber along, taking their time and have been the butt of jokes for centuries, maybe forever. But they have thick skin and take no offense, since they outlive all of us.

I worked as a soda jerk when I was in high school. At Sam Soldo’s Rexall Drug Store on Court Street in Binghamton. I started back, washing dishes and breaking down the trash so it could fit in the five garbage cans located in the basement next to the freight elevator.

But I learned how things worked and ended up behind the counter, making sodas, banana splits and shakes. Frying hamburgers and crafting BLT sandwiches cut in four sections and secured with toothpicks. I concocted a sandwich that made it to the menu – “The Merlin” – Cheese, lettuce tomato and mayo on rye, best if accompanied by a bowl of Manhattan clam chowder. It was a favorite of the Sears sales crew on the same block.

The woman who supervised the soda fountain crew called me “The Turtle.”

“You move too slow up and down the counter,” she would scold me. She flew back and forth like a Road Runner.

I went slow for a reason. I learned from the previous crew chief to go slow and do stuff along the journey: pick up empty plates, straighten the ketchup and mustard bottles, napkin holders and ashtrays, as I moved back and forth to assemble an order.

I’m really a turtle now. And not one that moves efficiently back and forth. Just an old coot, moving in “slow” gear.

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