Bytes from the Bean by Joe Manning 10-15-9912:00AM / Friday, October 15, 1999
We used to meet at the diner
at the break of dawn
that old greasy spoon
was open all night long
From "So Long Main Street," a song by Joe Manning and Steve Vozzolo
"My Uncle John wanted to start a restaurant, a diner as it happened to be, so they ordered the diner from a company, and it was delivered here. It had sliding doors and marble counter tops. It was a good diner. It sat long ways on Ashland Street, and there was an entrance from there. There was like an alleyway where they parked cars, and there was an entrance from there, too. It was long like a train car. It was all counters and seated about fifty or sixty. The grill was right out front. You'd order a hamburg or a steak, and it was cooked right there on the grill. It was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, right up until the '40's. It opened in the early '20's down near where the Richmond Hotel was. Then they moved it up on Ashland Street after a few years.
They made a custard pie that was very famous. They made a strawberry pie, and people used to come from everywhere for it, or for the banana cream. They had a lot of good pies. They had a blue plate special. Certain days of the week, they'd have spaghetti and meatballs or a pot of beef and spaghetti, or corned beef and cabbage. I can't remember all of them. People knew what the special was, and they knew that on a certain day, they could always get it.
My father and my uncle used to get tickets to the Yankee games and the Red Sox games. We would go by train to New York or Boston. We'd come back on the train, and the guy would say, "Florence...Florence, home of the Miss Florence Diner." We'd all pile out and go to the diner, and then get back on the train. It would go through the tunnel and bring us into North Adams. The train had four or five stops it would make, and there was always a diner there. We'd go on vacation to Maine and take my mother, and she would say, "I don't want to go to any diners." We'd end up at one or two.
At lunchtime, they used to come up from Sprague's on Marshall Street. Back then, Sprague's had thousands of people. They'd feed so many people in that diner in such a short period of time, that it was amazing. A guy would walk in the door, yell out what he wanted, and by the time he found a seat, the plate was there. My Uncle John had a cigar box where they'd cash up. You'd tell him what you had, and the cigar box came out even everyday. Then they got a cash register, and that never came out right. I remember my Uncle John saying, "Boy, I have to go back to the cigar box, because that always came out right."
-Paul Dilego, Sr, from Steeples
I remember my first diner. It was on Route 301 in La Plata, Maryland. I was 19 years old and living in a room in a private home while attending a small community college that had classes only in the evening. I went down there one night to cram for a biology exam and wound up doing an all-nighter. I sat in a booth in the corner and kept myself going on donuts and coffee till sunrise. A few truckers came in, and the waitresses chewed gum and gossiped at the end of the counter. I felt comfortable, and everyone was friendly. I went there a lot after that. That was in 1961. The diner isn't there anymore. The highway has changed so much, I can't even figure out where the diner stood. Oh, I got an "A" on the exam.
In 1965, I drove by myself all the way from Annapolis, Maryland, to the Colorado Springs, where I was stationed in the Air Force. I took Route 50 nearly all the way. Near Salem, Illinois, I stopped for lunch at a roadside diner called the Starlite on a miserable rainy day. I ordered a hot roast beef with mashed. I got a long plate with the sandwich in the middle and two scoops of potatoes, one on each end. It was good. Six years later, my wife and I were headed back to Connecticut from Colorado on Route 50 after a long vacation. When we crossed the Mississippi on the East Saint Louis Bridge, I remembered the Starlite. "It's somewhere near here," I told her. We were hungry. Suddenly, there it was. We ordered the hot roast beef with mashed. Guess what! Two scoops of potatoes, one at each end of the plate. Still good, too.
Diners are my style. There are two kinds: the ones that look like diners, and the ones that don't but feel like diners. People don't go to these places like they used to. For one thing, most white-collar workers take half-hour lunches now. They can either work more hours that way, or get home earlier. So it's a quick trip to the drive-thru. You bark your order to a speaker, pull out some bills, count your change, lay the bag on the passenger seat, and drop the drink in the cup holder. Then you gobble it down while the radio blasts out some rude talk show.
It seems like we can go through almost a whole day now without seeing or talking to anyone. Breakfast is eaten either in front of the TV instead of with the spouse of kids, or it's wolfed down alone in the car in the way to work. Many of us eat our lunch at our desks, often located in a cubicle (gotta keep working), or it's back to the drive-thru again. Stop for gas, and you swipe the credit card through the slot. No "Fill 'er up" anymore. They even have drive-thru drug stores now. In Waterbury, Connecticut, they have a funeral home where you can drive through and view the body. I'm not kidding! You can order over the Internet or from an 800 number with a credit card, so why go to the store? Why go to a live music concert when there's one on Pay-Per-View tonight? Or rent a video and see it in the privacy of your home.
Diners give us good food at low prices. More importantly, if gives us a chance to talk with folks we've probably known for years but haven't seen lately, or to meet someone we might enjoy getting to know. My friend Tony Talarico likes to sit at the counter at the Blue Benn Diner in Bennington, because he always winds up talking to an interesting person. The Benn is one of the best diners around, an old Silk City made in Paterson, New Jersey, in the forties. Every time I tell someone in North Adams that I live in Florence, they say, "Oh, I love the Miss Florence Diner." So do I. It's a fifty-two-year-old Worcester Diner, like the Miss Adams, which is a 1948 Worcester.
But there are other diner-type places, too. Most exist in our memories only. In North Adams, old-timers talk about Noel's, which was first on Ashland Street and later on Main. Most everyone over forty remembers The Capitol and Pat's (also called Tony's). Remember Helen's Diner on Marshall Street? All of these places gave folks a friendly and familiar place to go to grab a bite and see our friends. Most were swept away by Urban Renewal or McDonald's. Today North Adams has Linda's, a popular blue collar spot on Union Street, and the Appalachian Bean Café, where the old-timers meet in the morning and workers and business people meet for lunch. Both are like diners, cozy places where we feel at home. Do you have any past or present favorites. Let me know.
For lots of entertaining stuff about diners in Massachusetts, Vermont, and all over the country, check out www.roadsidemagazine.com. And don't forget to stop in to your local diner. Soup's on.
The Old Cafe
I drove by the empty lot
where the old place used to be
Parked my car and stood on that spot
and it brought back memories
I remember how we all cried
when they tore it down that day
We sure had some good times
down at the old cafe
My old man, God rest his soul
when he had change to spare
He'd lift me up on that big round stool
he loved to take me there
We'd order up two specials
and they'd slide 'em down our way
Me and Dad were pals then
down at the old cafe
When we were kids in high school
that's where we'd hang around
We'd talk about our big dreams
and how we'd leave this town
Then I met a home-town girl
who stole my heart away
I asked her to marry me
down at the old cafe
Now I have a little son
and I swear he's just like me
I know he'll never understand
the way it used to be
We go down to the Golden Arches
when it's time to spend my pay
I imagine him up on that stool
and pretend it's yesterday
I think about my dad and me
down at the old cafe
c 1997 Flatiron Press
Visit Joe's website at: www.sevensteeples.com.
Email Joe at: manningfamily@rcn.com. |
