The summer I was fourteen

My uncle helped make Boeing Bombers during World War II. After the war he brought his Rosie the Riveter bride back to his home town, where he opened a small restaurant, just a counter in the beginning. A few years later, he built a new building, right on the highway to Newton (and Wichita) and the Hesston Variety Store and Restaurant was born. Hesston had a hardware and a grocery store, also a post office and a farm equipment manufacturer, and naturally a bank. The Santa Fe railroad ran through the middle of town.

My uncle and his wife worked hard and prospered. People came from miles around to eat at the restaurant which had developed quite a reputation. This is why: home cooking. Every morning two or three old ladies (to me they were old) showed up before the place opened and made pies. Real pies. Cherry, apple of course, custard pie, chocolate pie, apricot pie. Whatever fruit was in season. Flaky crust. Loaded with fruit. None of your canned peaches with cornstarch glop.

The noon meal was maybe pot roast, or chicken fried steak. Sometimes roast beef. Not the rare kind, but well done. Real potatoes in the kitchen that were made into French fries on the spot. Home made mashed potatoes. Gravy. Fried chicken. Kansas fried chicken. Ain’t nothing like it. Green beans with bacon in the summer. Even the burgers were good. They sold gallons of iced tea. And soda.

I worked at my uncle’s as a waitress the summer I was fourteen. Refused to wear those ugly white waitress shoes. My arches fell. I had crushes, but no dates. I learned to smoke and drink coffee. The tips were poor but life was interesting. I remember more of that long-ago summer than I recall of last summer. I can still see faces of the faces of the locals and the truck drivers, even the City Service (later Citgo) guys sitting at the counter. I still hear the gossip, and the juke box, see the baseball games in the evening. Tiny Hesston was the big wide world. Life uncensored.

With my own money, I thought a blue denim swimming suit and a white halter top. Grown up clothes. Fourteen going on twenty-one.

At work, I learned to make malts and milk shakes and sundaes and never did learn to carry huge loads of plates and dishes like the other waitresses. Phyllis, Mitzi and Doris. Phyllis and Mitzi fought over Forrest, a handsome man who worked for Cities Service. Phyllis won by becoming pregnant. Well, all is fair in love and war, I guess.

Everyone should have at least one interesting summer in her life. I had a few. But none of them replete with home made pie but that one.