Oleo Acres (Re: [lbo-talk] Reply to Kelley)

snitsnat snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com
Wed Apr 20 16:17:02 PDT 2005


At 06:48 PM 4/20/2005, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


>I never doubted that you could support your views with data. I was
>objecting to your using personal friends as counter examples to my
>arguments. That put me in an awkward position. How am I supposed to argue
>this case without insulting your feelings? I would not want to hear bad
>things about people I know and care about.

Hmmm. That's innarestin'. It never occured to me to take what you're saying personally. I can' assure you that none of this hurts my feelings. I don't know how to explain why it doesn't, it just doesn't. I intellectualize everything, and I can see both sides -- very easily, a trait I get from my mom. Like Kerry, without the mumbling. :)

On that note, here's my little essay, which is an elaboration on something which I hadn't really intended to explore. It just ended up that way at the end. I was in a strange mood! . It's interesting to think about it -- to see that sometimes people are pretty immune from the consumerism that many of us decry. How is it, as I ask in this ramble, that no one felt the desire for a whole lot more. It belies the claims people make about sheeple being so heavily influenced by consumerism. Or does it? Maybe it's their defense mechanism. Dunno. WEll, I actually, I do know. There are good sociological explanations for what is going on in what I describe below. It's a ramble though. :)

Context: Over on the Pulp Culture list, Jordan had commented to me that, "at least you're not from Skaneateles" (a small town at the head of one of the Finger Lakes in NY) and that he was from Buffalo, "the mistake on the lake." Since I loved that lake, it was quite beautiful and I spent a lot of time making 20 mile bike trips there to go biking on the steep trails that led to the lake itself, it prompted some memories. I had no intention of ending up where I ended up in this scrambled bit of reminiscing, it was just "tellin' stories" as Gramps used to call it.

"I loved Skaneateles Lake. So much so that it was natural that we would want to honeymoon there when we got married. We needed a low-rent place to get married and a low-rent honeymoon. We rented a quaint little cottage on the lake. Glaciers carved out the lakes and Skaneateles has rather steep shores. You had to climb a staircase, a steep one, to get to the cottage.

I was a waitress and tarbender at the time, so many of our guests were customers. We had several who regularly came in at 4 p.m You could set your watch to their daily arrival: Doc, Ernie, Fred, Jimbo. Ernie looked like George Burns. They were all retired and hit the bar for cocktails, two a piece, either a manhattan or a martini, never more, except Doc. Fred was a retired music prof, Doc a retired phys ed prof. Jimbo had been in real estate. I think Ernie had been an engineer.

Once in awhile, Doc would stay for another one. In spite of regularly drinking two a day, five times a week, that third one would get him quite loaded. I waited on him one night after he'd had three. This was the little jazz club-restaurant, adjacent to a Howard Johnson's. It was quite frou-frou. Black dresses, black stockings, high heels. We were trained to put on a show as much as serve meals. The wine opening ritual --oiy!--my first try, I sunk a cork into a $120 bottle of wine. Boy, after work that night, that was a nice bottle of wine. Strained out most of the cork and drank up.

Anyway, I waited on Doc, on his third Manhattan. He was entertaining his daughter who was visiting for the weekend. As I tried to take their order, he asked, "Honey, which fork should I use?" and then giggled hysterically.

Now, I was a naive kid. When I started out in the HoJo's side of the business, truckers would ask if I had a match as I was flying by with a trayful of meals. I'd reply, anxious to please: "Oh, be right back!" I'd return to the trucker with the matches and he'd chuckle, eyes twinkling. It was their favorite game to play on the new girls, to ask for a match when she clearly had her hands full. Invariably, the innocent sweet thang would reply as I did. I dunno, I guess being on the road like that, it's the simple things that'll give you a chuckle for the day.

When Doc asked which fork to use, I responded in the same naive way. It didn't occur to me that a college professor probably knew which fork to use. All I could think of was that I would be in the position of explaining such fine manners, like I'd seen in the movies. Doc was the naif and I eagerly answered him with what I thought was charm and grace given the poor guy's lack of knowledge.

As I said, I was silly 18 year old.

"Well," I said,"you usually work from the outside in. This one would be your appetizer fork. Clams casino would be a good start for the evening. Would you like some? I'd recommend a Mondavi red... or wait, maybe your daughter would enjoy a local Finger Lakes wine, Bully Hill perhaps?"

"Oh, that's great to know honey." He held the fork up, as if he were admiring it, pondering the meaning of it all, and continued: "This one is the one I'd use for the appetizer. Is that it?"

"Oh, yes, that's it!" I said enthusiastically.

Whereupon, he swiftly poked me in the ass with the fork and giggled like a demon while his daughter smirked and shook her head muttering an exasperated, "Daaaaaaaad."

Doc was great and, of coure, we invited him to the wedding. He drove there, just never actually got to see me married.

We 'hired' the local minister, a guy who was well-known in my circles because he was willing to marry people who lived in sin and didn't belong to a church. He'd give you a perfunctory 'what for' as to whether you were really ready to get married, but that was it. He was retired and performed weddings for the extra cash.

Since the wasband was a chef and I was pretty good with the oven, we catered our own wedding. Made as much up ahead as possible and I even baked my own cake: the Wilton Way, though I later discovered Martha when I started baking cakes for friends' weddings.

We saved money for it all by working a lot of overtime--well, me, since the wasband was salaried and worked 70 hours a week already. We also carried home all the empties from the bar and turned them in for the deposit since Mr. B, the owner, didn't want to be bothered. He was a Libertarian. Recycling was a government mandate and fuck them all to hell, even if it cost him an extra five cents for a bottle of beer.

"Fuck the gummint," he'd mutter every morning as we served him his 'Battle Breakfast.' This was usually followed by, "Honey, living well is the best revenge."

A 'battle breakfast' was four scrambled eggs, four slices of bacon, four sausage patties, toast, and a couple of glasses of Heineken, our tap beer. Every day, like clockwork, he'd order unless we were dealing with an unexpected rush of customers or a busload. In which case, Mr. B would be right out there hustling the cash register, busing tables, and just being the owner-host, smiling and greeting people with his Lorne Greene good looks.

On the day of the wedding, as you can imagine, things were quite hectic. I was a wee bit tired. I'd stayed the night at the cottage and listened to our recently acquired kitty chase squirrels in the attack all night long. Up and down, scramble, scramble. After a fitful night, I got up, finished cleaning, decorated, put the finishing touches on the cake, and had just enough time to jump into the lake to rinse the sweat off and dunk my head. It was freezing. *brrrr* I didn't even bother to wash my hair.

People started arriving at 4:00 for a sunset ceremony. So, I'm doing my hair or some such and I hear that the preacher is at the bottom of the staircase with his wife.

Remember, Skaneatlas's shores are steep. How steep?

The preacher was popping nitroglycerin and looking apprehensively at the staircase. I'd invited all these older folks-- my customers-- many of whom were having a hard time dealing with the stairs. I think only Fred and the preacher actually made it. Everyone else went home, leaving their gifts and cards behind.

It was one of those moments when, as a kid, you realize just how tunnel-visioned you are.

At the reception later, I probably should have known things wouldn't work out when the wasband, asked why he'd married me, replied: "I figured it was a good way to get a tax break." :)

The cottage was launch pad for day trips around the Finger Lakes for a week: wineries, mostly, since our boss made sure that we'd get special tours. As a waitress and chef at a restaurant that sold a lot of wine to business clientele from local corporations, the wineries were thrilled to pitch their wines. So that was quite fun!

No, I'll swallow thanks! (You're not supposed to get drunk, so they offer a silver bowl to spit the wine in so you can taste a lot more wine without getting toasted and dulling your palate. My palate's just fine, thanks!

I think we also spent one afternoon catching a double feature for $2 a piece at one of those run down old theaters decorated with plush red velvet and gorgeous ornate carved staircases that wind their way up the balcony. You know the ones with huge cathedral ceilings? I think we spent one evening at a Holiday Inn where I began my habit of stealing the hotel ashtray. Otherwise, we spent the evening sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the ol' cottage.

I will never forget the autum leaves on fire at Keuka lake, mirrored int eh water as we sat on a deck outside a restaurant. The white sailboats, the fiery leaves, the blue, and the cottage we'd passed as we were driving along the winding lake roads. There was a sign hanging off the mailbox that read: Oleo Acres -- one of the cheaper spreads.

I've told that story before, about the lake. People have often responded with: Isn't that great. Love is all you need, honey."

It's one of those responses you get from people who think it's normal to spend $20k on a wedding. It's that "poor people have all kinna fun and love keeps 'em together an' all that" sentiment.

It's always startled me to have that sentiment mirrored back to me. I really don't recall it that way. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't Frank Capra-esque. It's wasn't noble or dignified or anything of the sort. And it really wasn't poverty. Not grinding poverty, though to some folks I've known, living like we did was the epitomy of trash. We might as well be living in grinding poverty in their eyes, only we were worse: we were trash, undignified. People who could aspire to more, but didn't.

As I recall it, we didn't know better. We didn't feel we were somehow missing out on anything or that we deserved more. You don't plan your wedding thinking, "If only my parents had money and could buy me a fancy dress." It never occurs to you to think that way. You don't expect your parents to give you a wedding. Your mother got married like that, your sister did, your friends did. Maybe you'd heard about people who spent a whole lot more. Heck, I and all my co-workers at the wedded had served people at big fancy weddings. We may have gone to a few ourselves. You'd think we'd have desired it, wouldn't you?

But, we didn't and no one despaired because we couldn't afford it. They were different people, the people who had those weddings. That's what they did. This was what we did.

Life just was.

And that self-reflective feeling that you hear people express, about how love is all you need....? I don't know, but it doesn't come from the place we were at at the time. I think you tell yourself that when you have something and are afraid to lose it.



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