February 15, 2020 – “This is grits” or “These are
grits”
I
swung the door open to The Skillet and the smell of hamburgers and coffee
enveloped me. Yes, just as I remembered. It had been years – Five, ten, may fifteen
years ago. Time seems to fly. I don’t
remember the last time I’d been in The Skillet.
It was like coming home to a home I remembered all too well, my weekly
haunt where I ate lunch, mostly alone, when I worked in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Back
then, down town didn’t have all those new buildings. Gosh, the traffic was crazy today, but it was
noon time and everyone in all those office buildings was scampering around for
lunch.
There
were only a handful of seats at the bar, but there was one table left at the
very back and that would work. I led the
way and pointed to the chair opposite me at the big table – seats 4 to 6
comfortably directly in front of the rest rooms. My husband sat down and looked around. He had never been here and was surprised that
I knew about this place. I snagged the
menu and ordered us ham and cheese omelets with hash browns and coffee.
“You’ve
been here before?” He asked curiously after
he took his first sip of coffee from the old timey ivory ceramic mug.
“I
used to come here all the time when I worked down here,” I answered and then added,
“good coffee.”
“Yeah,
it is good coffee.”
“When
did you work down here,” he asked with a blank look.
I am
thinking, YUP, this is his short term memory kicking in, this is the heart
operation that caused pockets of lost information.
I
have been dealing with this for the last eight years. It is something all spouses deal with when
their mates undergo open-heart surgery.
Sometimes it is amusing, but sometimes it hurts. This time it was an “ouch” because it was
proof that his mind had wiped the memory of my legal secretarial career days away
as if it was fog casually moped from the car windshield.
I winched,
but tried to ignore it as I should be getting used it. One day last week, I did lean over and asked
him in a backhanded way.
“Do
you remember the good times as well
as the bad times?”
“Yes,
I remember all the good times,” he
replied with a soft smile.
So
he knows his memory isn’t stellar anymore and I am dealing with it as best as I
can.
I directed
my attention to the restaurant. Not much
had changed. They had removed the row of
booths and turned it into a storage area.
I do remember that the booth seats were shot – we’d sink down deep in
them. It was like climbing out of a hole when we would go to leave.
A
gal I worked with, Stefanie, and I, - OH, what was her last name - it escapes
me, used to eat lunch here quite often back then. I would say, “I am in the mood for a greasy
hamburger” and she’d point at me and say, “Skillet!” The hardest decision was who would drive. She had a mane of fiery red hair and worked
for Duncan and I at the time worked for Phillips and the new associate attorney
Smith.
I
noticed on the back wall of the restaurant was something new to me. There is a painted canvas of a breakfast
plate with the words “This is grits” and “These are grits”. It made me smile – good old Southern humor.
I
will admit I am late to “grits” as food and must say, on the two occasions I
have had ‘Shrimp and grits’ I thought it was mighty fine.
I
picked up a to-go menu so that I could take a trip down memory lane later. The Skillet has been serving Spartanburg for
70 years. “We hope you return to continue
the tradition.”
Note to self – next time I am hankering
for a wonderful burger – drive to Spartanburg and slip onto one of those
twirling chrome and red vinyl stools and have me a Skillet burger.
NOTE: Below is the answer to This or These –
singular or plural – Jennifer Becton has perfectly answered this vastly debated
question.
Visit her at:
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