Signs of Shirley

I thought of somebody over the weekend I hadn't thought about in years. My wife and I were having breakfast in Port Huron as we headed back to Grand Rapids after a glorious week of vacation on the eastern shores of Lake Huron in my native Ontario.

There's a little place in Port Huron, the Daybreak Cafe, that we stumbled on a few years back. Nothing special really in terms of ambience, but good food, including a stuffed pancake my wife says is the best she's ever had. I often order the pot roast skillet (sounds odd but is awfully good), but this time I went more basic: two eggs scrambled and corned beef hash.

"What was that place you always used to get corned beef hash," my wife asked after the waitress left to put in our orders.

"Breton Village Seafood in Breton Village Mall," I replied. "The original location. It's part of D&W now."

Instantly I was transported back 30 years to the late 1980s and the weekly (or more) breakfasts my buddy Ken and I would get at Breton Village Seafood. The restaurant was an odd layout. If you came in the back of the mall, the east side, you had Rite Aid to your left and then soon after entering the mall you had Breton Village Seafood on the right. There was some seating, then the hostess stand and then some more seating. What was interesting was the booths were basically the wall for the mall's hallway. So if you sat in an outside booth you were kind of part of the restaurant and also kind of part of the mall. There was always something to look at, especially if you were eating on your own. It was a cool set up.

What was even better than the set-up though was our regular waitress. Her name was Shirley, and I wouldn't want to guess at how old she was when she was working there. Not as old as we thought she was probably. What did two guys in their mid 20s know though. Shirley was nice, but she also was no-nonsense. We'd see her interact with other tables now and then, and she didn't put up with much guff. For some reason though she seemed to really like us. Maybe we reminded her of someone. Who knows. And we really liked her. 

After a while we pretty much knew her schedule, and we'd plan to meet for breakfast on days we knew she was on. We'd get to the hostess stand, and we didn't even have to ask for Shirley's section. It was automatic. Most days she'd be on her way to our table with a pot of coffee and two of those brown, generic restaurant coffee mugs as soon as we'd sat down, big smile on her face and the same on ours.

As the years passed, as my buddy Ken and I got married, had kids, changed jobs, bought houses and more, the regular breakfasts started becoming less and less frequent, and at a certain point Breton Village Seafood changed locations. It stayed in the mall but moved to the south and the booths weren't part of the mall anymore. 

Years after that I was scanning the obits in the Grand Rapids Press, as I am wont to do, and I saw Shirley. I was behind on my papers and I'd missed the visitation and the service. But her obit paid testament to a life well lived. I remember that.

And this weekend, I remembered Shirley again. I remembered her smile. I remembered her tough veneer. And I remembered what a great waitress she was, how hard she worked and how she hustled. And I was glad that for a time our paths crossed and that we had gotten to know each other in some small way. I wonder how many people cross our paths in life who have that kind of lasting impact? I wonder what it takes to be that kind of person?