Eggs Americana

    By Oxy Mora on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 3:10pm |

     

    Whether it's the River Run, Crossroads, or Fay's,

    the Polka Dot, Loons on a Limb, or Four Aces,

    a new breakfast joint is hard to breach; you're as

    welcome as an order of English muffins and tea. 

     

    Shaded eyes from back booths slide off you

    quicker than two poached eggs off a saucer;

    ersatz butcher-block tables sprout crops of

    jelly jar glasses and napkins of paper-towel.

     

    You idle until Stella says, "...table by those pots."

    Throaty private jokes chug down the countertop

    like a locomotive starting up; you remember being

    sent snipe hunting and give the chair a tug or two.

     

    Up front, the single-check guys hash over boats

    and hunting while at the horseshoe table in back

    the high rollers play liars' dice for the whole tab;

    clustered about---women who know all about liars.

     

    Six months of "two over easy",

    the regulars filing in as usual,

    you think about the guy

    nursing a cup of coffee

    in the Dick's Diner painting--

    and wonder if he ever caught

    the rhythm of the place,

    or was just passing through.....

     

    ...when Stella up and says, "...how was your evening?"

    A flotilla of necks and wall calendars tack in sweeping

    formations, and a story begins from back a while ago

    ---that Friday a stranger came in and sat at your table....

     

     

    Comments

    Superb writing.  I was there! 

     

    We have a restaurant just like it in the island where I live.  It's called "Bear Track Inn".  Those same people frequent it and call it their own.  Nobody sits at their big round table unless they're invited.  When we still had a sheriff you could always find him there.  Not much else for him to do.


    by Ramona on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 9:44am

    Thanks, Ramona. I love the names of these places, am adding "Bear Track Inn" to my list. The big round table must be like the horseshoe table, invitation required. 

    I appropriated the great description by Least Heat-Moon in Blue Highways---that the way you tell a good breakfast joint is by how many old wall calendars are still hanging about the place. 


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:05am

    Nice, Oxy.   

     

    Particularly Loved the: " ... slide off you quicker than two poached eggs off a saucer ..."

     

    I remember reading Blue Highways, oh so many years ago. Wonderful book. 

     

    For many years, the man I work for, owned a number of John Baeder paintings of diners, including one called "Shorty's Shortstop."    

    I love diners, and have spent time in some interesting ones over the years in places like Brewster, Maine, Bryant, Ohio and Fort Wayne, Indiana to name a few.  


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 1:57pm

    Thanks, Mr. Smith. That's a great diner painting. Do you remember any of the names of the diners? 


    by Oxy Mora on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 6:12pm

    Diners .... ahhhh.   I remember a wonderful diner in Manhattan that I used to go to when my then-girlfriend lived on West 30th St. near 9th Avenue.  It used to get an odd mix of customers due to its location;  near Madison Square Garden, across from the main Post Office and close to a pickup spot for transvestite hookers, so you got Sports fans, Postal Employees and Transvestite hookers ... and my girlfriend and me, two struggling artist types. It was quite an interesting show.   The thing was, the place had the absolute best cheese cake ever.   I think it was torn down a few years ago.   There was another diner nearby on 9th called the Cheyenne, but it didn't have half the ambience that this place had.

    Also there used to be a great diner right down the road from me when I lived in Long Island City, called the Midway, I think.  It was on Jackson Ave. at 47th Ave.  It totally burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances one night.  And right near that, was a beautiful old art deco diner called the Blue Sky diner.  It was still in business when I first lived in the L.I.C. neighborhood, but you could see that it was a bit off the beaten path and was no longer getting enough foot traffic to keep it open.  It was an empty shell for years, then a few years ago, someone tried re-opening it as an upscale type place, but it didn't last long.

    The one in Bryant, Ohio had a great jukebox and was close to the Etch-a-Sketch factory.

    There was also one I enjoyed in Worcester, MA, but I don't remember the name.


     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 11:42pm

    Latest Comments