RoadsideOnline

Yet one more thing different about our neighbors to the north: The Quebecois version of the convenience store.

Writing advice from writers you admire is always worth considering, especially if you are aspiring. One of my heroes, Annie Dillard, once remarked that it is good to write about winter in summer and summer in winter—clarifies the mind.

So here I am, snowed in in my little New England town, in January, thinking of summer!

This past summer I had a real treat, an opportunity to visit the province of Quebec. Not just right over the border, as I had a few times before (it was great sport in college to nip over to buy a case of Brador beer). Our destination was deep into the territory, past ever-enchanting Quebec City, and east along the impressive St. Lawrence River to Parc Saguenay. In any event, I had best add that it is not so easy for anyone to “nip” across the border these days. Bring your passport and your patience if you do this, and do not confess to carrying produce or contraband.

Many long years ago, Roadside Magazine ran an a photo essay cleverly entitled “Boy Meets Grill,” celebrating the guy at our local diner or coffee shop who flips pancakes, turns out meltingly crisp home fries, and knows how to do when it comes to eggs “sunny side up” and “over easy.” But what about the ladies who make our visits so comforting and memorable? A marvelous book has just been published, Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress, by Candacy Taylor. It is marvelous because it is a book of integrity and insight. You should buy it immediately (order it through your local bookshop—the publisher is Cornell University Press—or grab it via amazon.com), definitely for holiday gifts, and/or alert Santa.

A quick thumb-through reveals a bounty of terrific photographs, portraits of the waitresses at work, at a counter or beside a booth, with favorite customers; enticing shots of pie being served and coffee being poured, etc. There is something candid and compassionate, but not patronizing, about these images—Taylor has a knack for respectfully capturing the real. Those of us who try to take good photos in such places would do well to study her success here.

However, though handsomely produced, this is not a coffee-table book, not really. Read it! A former waitress herself, Taylor undertook this project to interview and understand the older American waitress after a long night: “On that Friday night I thought to myself, if we are this tired, how do waitresses twice our age (I was in my early 30s at the time) do this, and how do they feel about their jobs? Do they have dreams they have never realized? Are they worn out from the physical and mental demands of the job?...The questions kept coming.” With camera, tape recorder, laptop, and an open mind (there are so many clichés!), Taylor set out to learn about career waitresses, or “lifers,” as they sometimes wryly, or proudly, call themselves.

Every year, the TV, radio, newspapers, and internet news services tell us that more Americans travel on (and around) Thanksgiving than any other time. More than Christmas, more than Memorial Day weekend. It is supposed to be a joyous time of gathering around a feast table with loved ones.

Of course, it isn’t for everyone, or not every year. Fares are jacked up and if you waited too long to get a ticket, schedules are tricky and you realize with a sigh that you are going to have to make a heroic effort. Flights, buses and trains are full, and there are epic traffic jams. Your destination is a table laden with predictable food and conversation with people whom, to put it kindly, often drive you crazy. En route, you listen to somebody on NPR or read a magazine article that decries the falseness of the holiday, reminding us what imperialist jerks the Pilgrims really were. If you are the host or hostess, you get to wedge into a packed grocery store, where the only turkeys left are too big or too little. When you start to prepare the meal, you realize you bought cilantro when you meant to get parsley, and you wonder how you are going to get every side dish to come out at approximately the same moment—unless and until you lighten up.

There is a new shopping center in town. Its location was never really controversial—the developer chose a wooded, rocky spot just off one of our main roads, and I did notice that a well-regarded local ecologist told the local paper “there really is no unusual or special plant, animal, or habitat in that spot.” Its mix of stores, still evidently a work in progress (there are quite a few empty storefronts remaining), caused some concern, as our already struggling Main Street didn’t want or need competition. Not to worry, folks, thus far all the tenants of the new mini-mall are big corporations with headquarters out of town. Whether the development would get a tax break, how much, and for how long was hotly argued, but the mayor and those in her corner prevailed because the local economy so badly needs a bigger base. One item seems never to have been debated: the design. The developer and his design team pledged to be “sensitive,” which meant not only that the storefronts would have a somewhat-New-England-ish look, but that there would be hills and dales and green swathes. I notice even vintage-looking streetlamps were installed here and there.

“Gloucester Crossing,” as it was dubbed, is now open for business.

Brother Blue. Photo by Roger Gordy

Sometimes when you’re lost in a strange new place, somebody finds you. That’s the way I intersected with Brother Blue (real name: Hugh Morgan Hill), the itinerant storyteller of Boston and Cambridge, who passed away this week. I was pretty young when I first met him, a recent college graduate who had just moved to the big city. It was a time of transition for me, not only from college to looking for work, but also from a fairly rural area to a bustling urban environment. Also, as sometimes happens in such periods, I had left behind a guy I loved to pursue my dreams.

Here is what happened. It was a chilly autumn evening in Harvard Square, and a daunted, pensive young woman was emerging from the subway, eyes momentarily dazzled by the lights of the night, head buzzing with thoughts, regrets, and hopes. I was also distracted by hunger and worrying about my low funds. In short, I had a lot on my mind. “Oh MY!” a great voice boomed. Confused, I looked around, and there he was, in a nearby alcove.