A Deli Tale: Steelers and Iron

Ferguson is the greatest living Steelers fan. He is also the drunkest living Steelers fan. He comes in most Friday nights, drunk, to order a cheesesteak. But he does not order just any cheesesteak. It is a "Steelers'cheesesteak!" He usually calls out "Go STEELERS!" several times after entering the deli. And the cooks in the back respond with a jovial, "Yeah!" "Steelers!!" or "That Roethlisberger!" When calling out his order, my coworkers have compelled me to call, "one Steelers' cheesesteak for here!" If one does not specify, he will not respond, or so I'm told.

Now, Andy and Cody come in at any time of the day or night to simply annoy us. They are my neighbors and my boss has made various deals with them which sort of exchange work with indefinite amounts of food. In keeping with this, they consider themselves borderline employees and take extra liberties as such. They make a racket while waiting for food, talk with customers with whom they are not acquainted, sell items from their school fundraisers, and generally disregard all of our censures when not given in an iron tone.

One night, Andy and Cody were waiting for their order of cheese fries. After twice telling them to keep away from the cash register, and step back from the ordering line, I was ready for more drastic measures. It so happened that Ferguson was preparing to order when I found Cody and Andy smugly angling near the register. That was it, the iron entered my voice, and I sternly called them out, "boys! If you continue to disobey my instructions I will call security! You are in a public place and you need to act like it!" They stepped back.

I looked back at Ferguson, ready to take his order, with an apologetic half-smile. He looked down, his scruffy beard wrinkling over his double chin. His bloodshot eyes looked a little shocked as he quietly ordered "just a cheesesteak." That was all. He did not yell toward the kitchen, he simply took his seat quietly, waiting for me to call out his order, at full attention.

I think Ferguson mistook my iron tone for scolding him instead of the boys, of whom he may or may not have taken notice. He has always been more subdued with me since then, though his jolly manner was greatly helped by the Superbowl results. In fact, he stopped ordering cheesesteaks after their victory, and has ordered grilled chicken sandwiches, to the great heartbreak of the cooks.

What to do on a Saturday night?

After work early Saturday evening, I was confronted with a mass of homework left undone for just that moment. So, naturally, I called Adriane and Tim to see if they were interested in going to Franklin and Marshall to watch Six Characters in Search of an Author. It's a really wonderful play that I've read and discussed--and is there anything better than going to see a play with which you're the least bit familiar? No. No there is not. But they were quite spent and couldn't come. So I asked another friend, who had in mind a quiet movie night at home, instead. So we watched a movie and I walked back late, half asleep, still thinking about having missed the play.

It's important to find people who will go to see thinking-type plays with you at a moment's notice. But if they're not available, it might be a better idea to just go alone, and not wish you had gone.

Dear "O": Wish you were here.

What happened to the "o" in manoeuver? We can't decide that some words will change for the sake of efficiency and others will remain uselessly difficult. Through and though come to mind. Superfluous letters are a mark of the English language. I embrace them. I miss them when they're gone.

Educatin' and Mackin'

I have begun my field experience through my education class. I get to spend time in a REAL middle school in Lancaster, with REAL teachers and REAL students. The thing is, I'm paired with the school librarian. She is a wonderful person, truly. But her time with students does not overlap much when I am there. Also, I do not want to be a librarian. Not at all. I dig the Dewey decimal system and all. I dig books. But I have never been on good terms with large-scale research or large amounts of paperwork. Not surprisingly, Research + Paperwork = Being a Librarian.

This experience taught me a few things already, though. Teaching does not solely involve students. It comes with other teachers, too. And teachers all have opinions. All of 'em.

In other news, last night I was preparing to close around 8:30 at the deli. A guy came in who had called in his order, which was not ready at the time he paid. Assuming Gary would bring out the completed order when it was finished, I resumed sweeping in the dining room. Soon, the customer and I struck up a conversation. We talked for several minutes, 'til I had finished sweeping the entire room... Still no food. I thought maybe it was time to check on it. The order had been ready since (Gary claims) "just after the guy arrived." Mortified, I handed the guy his order with a smile, "it just came up!" ...Gary was sure that I would have checked for the order already, so he had assumed I was just "mackin', looking for a Valentine's date." No. No I was not.

The Happiest People in the World

Here is a selection from Dorothy Osborne's Letters that I found in Woolf's A Room of One's Own.


"The heat of the day is spent in reading or working and about sixe or seven a Clock, I walkeout into a Common that lyes hard by the house where a great many young wenches keep Sheep and Cow’s and sitt in the shades singing of Ballads; I goe to them and compare their voyces and Beauty’s to some Ancient Shepherdesses that I have read of and finde a vaste difference there, but trust mee I think these are as innocent as those could bee. I talke to them, and finde they want nothing to make them the happiest People in the world, but the knoledge that they are soe. most commonly when we are in the middest of our discourse one looks aboute her and spyes her Cow’s goeing into the Corne and then away they all run, as if they had wing’s at theire heels."

The happiest people in the world, "but the knoledge that they are soe." It makes me wonder, am I in that category as well? I think so. And the more so, because I know it. But I cannot allow fear of diminishing happiness to darken my happiness:

"What though my joys and comforts die? The Lord my Savior liveth! / What though the darkness gather 'round? Songs in the night He giveth! / No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging! / While love is Lord of heav'n and earth, how can I keep from singing?!"

Maybe Christians are the happiest and solemnest people on earth.