Just Another Morning at McDonald's

I was sitting at a different booth from usual in McDonald's this morning reading the paper and drinking fifty-cent coffee. My usual booth was taken by a guy who had a cloth-cased guitar sitting next to him.

Meanwhile, a guy with no legs in a wheelchair wheels in the door. I have seen him there before: unkempt, in old military fatigues. I have tried to avoid him, he tells a sad story and is always hitting up customers for change for coffee, and management tries to chase him off. He picks up a conversation with a guy in painter whites sitting at a booth by the door.

"Hey, I'm Ed. You the guy who wants to buy the sprayer? I'll give you everything for seventy-five bucks. It's worth a lot more than that, but I can't sell it, and I really need the money."

The guy in whites says, "Yes, I'm interested. Where do you live?"

"Over on Mark Dabling, just around the corner in the apartment building."

"Do you have a phone, Ed? I can stop by tonight to see it."

"Yeah, seventy-five bucks is a good deal."

Ed gives the painter his number and then talks about the time he painted a McDonald's in California.

"Yep, I painted the whole damn thing. Those big windows drove me nuts. Just after I finished them, it started to rain, and it washed away all the paint. Onto the sidewalk and down the gutter till it was all gone. Can't do it no more since I lost my legs. I had seven blood clots in them before they chopped them off."

"Sorry about that, Ed."

"Oh, I live with it. I'll wait for your call tonight.

From my regular booth comes the funky strumming of a guitar. Bluesey, percussive and syncopated. The musician is good looking and well dressed. Out comes a ballad  with lots of soul about hard times:  

Everyone knows

How this story goes,

There is no end.

The only road left to roam

Is the lonely road home,

You've got to let me in.

After he finishes, I walk over and ask him  his name and if he wrote the song.

"The name's Mark. Yep, I wrote it.  I have been on the road for quit a while. Headin' for California. I've had lots of time to write down my stories."

I ask him about his guitar.

"Yeah, this guitar is part of me."

I say, "I know, I lost my Gibson somewhere in the Northwest a couple of years ago. It was a big loss.

"Well, you can always get an old guitar for not much money."

"Well, I have some other guitars at home. My wife's nephew made them. He teaches a course on guitar design and construction for a Perdue engineering class."

"I'm from Indianapolis and went to Perdue. Took engineering, but only lasted a year."

"Yea," I say, "You either resonate with engineering or you don't."

I had to leave and didn't learn anything more from Mark.

=======================

I never know what to expect when I walk into McDonald's

My Grand Father’s Violin

[This is a speech I recently presented.]

When I was a child I had a dream of being a virtuoso on the violin. My mother knew of this dream, and on my eleventh birthday, she gave me this violin. “This is Grandpa Sylvester’s violin that he started playing in the 1890’s. Learn to play it well and it will be your ticket to college.”

I knew my parents didn’t have enough money for college; so, with enthusiasm, I began working on my ticket to college. [Play a few horrible notes on my Grandfather's violin.] One night I overheard my parents talking in the bedroom: “Oh, George, we are so blessed to have such a prodigy.” “Genevieve, I can’t stand that screeching.”

When I started sixth grade, I began taking lessons and playing in the Emerson Middle school Philharmonic. As I walked through the mining town of Butte, I never suspected that some kids didn’t like violin players. The first day, I met such a kid on the playground: Bucky Loomis. He started punching me in the shoulder. “Hey, you fringin’ four-eyed fairy—with a fiddle. What a sissy.”

This was time for fight or flight. I shoved Bucky Loomis and ran as fast as I could. It was nightmare—he came closer and closer, but after a few blocks, I pulled away. This happened most every night. Sometimes he would jump me from behind a garbage can or from behind a car; but, he could never catch me—on the street or in my nightmares.

One day in class, Jeanie Aronen, the cute girl I had a crush on, told me,” I just heard that Bucky Loomis is going to fight you after school tonight.”

BBBBucky Loomis, I was trapped. Everyone in the school would be out in the alley for the fight. I couldn’t chicken out and not show up. My life flashed before me to my funeral. There I lay in the casket with my Grandpa Sylvester’s violin in hand. I hear my parents, “Oh, George, our dream is gone.” “Well, ah, at least now he won’t have to suffer the pain of practicing that violin.”

The whole school gathered around for the fight; they sounded like a medieval mob at a public hanging. Pow, Pow, Pow. End of fight; Three punches to the nose. My face is covered with blood. I skulk home. I see through the back porch window that Mom is sitting in the kitchen having coffee with her best friend, Loretta. “Oh, No. I did I want Mom to know about the fight—she would be on the phone to Bucky Loomis’s mom, all my friend’s moms, the school principal and then hold my hand and violin and walk me to and from school every day. I had a plan; I put my violin up to screen my bloody face, and walk past them [violin by head]

Mom said, “Geoff, say hi to Loretta.”

I said, “Hi,” and walked to my room.

When I started seventh grade, another problem showed up: Mousey Oulette. “Hey, you friggin’, four-eyed fairy—with a fiddle. What a sissy.” Mousey chased me home most every night—but he never could catch me. One day at the end of the year, Jeanie Aronen told me in class,” I just heard that Mousey Oulette is going to fight you tonight.” [Portray the fight with more careful punch blocks] Bam, bam, bam. Three punches to my nose.

When I started eighth grade, I met another obstacle: Spike Perusich. “Hey you [FFF with an F] (I now had a reputation and nickname.) I gave him a shove and ran. —but he never could catch me. One day on the playground; I threw a snowball at my buddy Joe Sicotte, but missed and hit Spike Perusich right in the back. Spike turned with a snear. The kids on the playground froze. [Loud sound of inhales] Spike was the mother of all junk yard dogs. “Hey, you FFF with an F,” I’ll crush you after school tonight.”

The whole school gathered round. [Simulate fight]. Bam bam bam—right on his nose. [Aside to the audience] Spike couldn’t fight! In fact he was such a bully that he had never been in a fight before. [I go back up to him and give a two circle undercut which knocks him over the alley fence into the trash cans.]

There were cheers from the crowd. I slept well that night. No nightmares, just Jeanie Arronen with her arms around my neck saying, “You’re my hero.”

When I started high school, I decided to quit the violin-- the social pressures were too great. Mom cried, “Well there goes your dream and your ticket to college.” Dad said, “I think you’ve made a wise decision, son.”

Well, the truth be known, there was a deeper reason for quitting the violin—I knew I didn’t have the commitment, much more the talent to become a virtuoso. I had spent more time running home from school than practicing the violin.

Have you ever had that realization! That your dream was not achievable? When reality set in that you couldn’t be a Michael Phelps, a Dorothy Hammel, or a Paganini?

But from lemons, we can make lemonade. When I went to high school, I joined the track team, and found that no one could catch me. No one at high school. No one in Butte. No one in Montana. Three years later, I won the state championship in the half mile. And from that, I earned a track scholarship to college.

And that is how my Grandfather’s violin got me a ticket to college.