Lunch Counter Encounters

One of my favorite memories from my childhood, was when Grandma would take my sister Amy and I on Rose City Transit, to the dime store (J.J. Newberry's) downtown. Newberry's had a great candy counter where she would stock up on her Horehound Drops. They were a hard oval shaped candy, brown in color with a sugar dusting on the outside that made them look almost gray. Grandma always had them stashed in her purse and also stored them in a container on her night stand...for medicinal purposes. The best part of the trip was always right before we went back home. The three of us would each take a seat at the soda fountain and order ourselves a banana split or a hot fudge sundae. I carefully watched as the woman behind the counter built those sundaes, thinking to myself what a perfect job that would be! Little did I know that ten years later I would be that woman behind the counter making the sundaes! It was my first paying job. A dollar ninety an hour...plus tips. I had forgotten it was my dream job until one day I waited on a grandma with her granddaughters...and I wondered if someday one of them would be standing at the fountain building a cool, creamy treat for another generation. I loved that job so much, I stayed there three years. (In reality, it was like boot camp for restaurant workers.) Amy saw how much I loved it and she got a job there too! And believe it or not...she ended up falling in love with our boss and marrying him! They have been married for over thirty years now. I too met someone special there...and this blog is about her. Her name is Mary.
It was 1976 and Mary had just graduated from high school in Brooklyn, NY. She and a couple of friends hitched rides across the country and ended up in Portland, Oregon. Mary was a free spirit. Long braids, flowy skirts, tie-dyed shirts and cowboy boots. I was much more conservative. Twenty years old, married and living in a big house where we rented out the extra bedrooms. It was an organic, vegetarian household...which I hated but never spoke up about. A real "communal" living experience. I looked the part, wearing railroad overalls, blue prison shirt and hiking boots...but looks were as far as it went. One afternoon, Mary and I were waiting at the same bus stop. We started talking and she thought it was pretty cool that "a chick (me) was working the grill" at the lunch counter. After a couple of minutes of chatting, Mary asked me if I wanted to smoke a joint. She asked me this as she was pulling one out of her bag. I almost died right there on the spot. "Oh no! I don't do that kind of thing!" As she lit it I heard her mutter..."Yeah right..." "No! Really!" I was sure that cops were going to come barreling up to the stop and throw us both in jail. "So...if you really don't smoke...how come you act the way you do?" My reply..."I'm just high on life." I swear that's how it went...and that was my reply. (I was one of those "Up With People" people. In fact, I still remember the theme song.) I think she finally saw how uncomfortable I was and pinched it off, putting it back in her bag for later. She mentioned that she needed a place to stay and I invited her to move in with us. That weekend, she showed up at our house pushing a shopping cart with all of her earthly belongings. We quickly became best friends.
I could write many blogs about Mary. And this will probably be just the first. The story I wanted to write about today is one that took place several years ago. Mary knew that I loved Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I had been a fan since 1969...Woodstock. In the 70's I got to hear CSN in concert. It was spectacular. They sang "Southern Cross" with a sailing video playing in the background. It became my favorite song...of all time. Neil Young went on tour with CSN a while back. Mary bought us tickets. We were up in the nosebleed section...but I didn't care. We were there. And I was hopefully going to hear my favorite song in the world. In between songs, people would yell out to request their favorites. I begged Mary to yell "SOUTHERN CROSS!" with me. She wouldn't do it. Repeatedly I begged her. (I certainly couldn't yell it myself.) She never did it. And...they never played it. I was really bummed. But...being a good friend...I let it go. That is, I let it go until about six months later. My daughter invited us to a basket ball game at Franklin High School. It was the first sporting event I had been to at her school. We were sitting a respectable distance away from her and her friends...back with the "other parents." Immediately after half time, as the players were coming back on to the court...Mary stands up, cups her hands around her mouth and yells as loud as she can, "SOUTHERN CROSS!" She then sat back down next to me and said, "There. Are you happy now?" Yep. That's Mary.