Breakfast at Linda's

If Northeast Ohio didn't already exist, we would have to invent it, if only to have a place to store the nation's strategic reserves of red and white checked gingham tablecloths.

It seems to be a place dreamed up by the collective consciousnesses of America, a mecca of  red farmhouses, F-150s with snowplow attachments, and the most U.S. Presidents of any state. It swings politically from red to blue and back again. It sits slightly north of the South, just west of the East, and a smidgen east of the Midwest.  If America were a hard working man living in a big city and fondly remembering his rural childhood, complete with white picket fences and firework shows and visits to the county fair,  Ohio would be that childhood.

In the town of Middlefield, Ohio (pop. 2,694) is a place called Linda's Restaurant. You've been to Linda's, even if you haven't, because Linda's exists in every township and crossroads in the country. If there is a post office, a general store, and a bar, chances are there is a Linda's.  This is Ohio. If you've been here, you've been everywhere.

You walk in to Linda's, stamping the snow or dust or red clay off your feet, and sit where you like, because it's that kind of place. No buzzers, no hostess, and no wait. (except maybe on a Saturday morning, a Sunday afternoon, or a Friday night after the game)

The menu is laminated paper, usually mass produced from a home printer or copy machine. There is a black and white photograph of Linda and her husband (George, Tommy, Bruce) along with a story of how the place came to be. Sometimes the words are obscured by some mysterious and fragrant gunk, possibly maple syrup and powdered sugar and dirt. There are always pancakes on the menu, always eggs, always potatoes, always bacon or sausage. Gravy is optional and varies from region to region, but pancakes are universal.

 The word "zesty" is nowhere to be found.

Your waitress comes. She is pure rural everywhere, regardless of accent, with a strong, plain face and a web of crows feet around her eyes. She is over forty. She is either a smoker or she quit sometime in the last ten years, and she almost never needs to write down the order. Often, her name is Lucille.

She is never, and this is key, an eighteen year old girl named Tiffany or Amber. She is not a twenty six year old struggling actor named Aden.  She isn't working on a screenplay. She doesn't watch Downton Abby. When she gets home, chances are she will cook dinner for her husband and go to bed exhausted while he sits with a beer and watches the golf channel. She smiles at you. She is sad but resigned.

 She never offers you an appetizer (Firecracker Cheese Sticks! Exploding Onion! Jalapeno Poppers!), and she never asks if you've been there before, because she knows if you have or if you haven't. She never squats down to hear you better. Her knees are too bad and there isn't any music playing other than the ambient symphonic melody of cheap plastic glasses clinking, chairs scraping across linoleum, and the last gasps of small town newspapers being rustled and pawed and shuffled. Outside, long haul trucks passing through are an aural blend of wind and smoke and splashing slush; a Doppler Effect of chickens or televisions or ball bearings traveling to and from points unknown.

Your food arrives swimming in grease: eggs over easy or scrambled, hash-browns or home-fries, sausages as thick and knobbly as the fingers of your fellow diners, waffles with chocolate chips, blueberries buried in pancakes like nuggets of gold. You sop up the juice with toast. You never see the bottom of your coffee cup.

The people around you are old timers or old before their time, a collection of Carhartt jackets and blue jeans and hats tipped back to the crown of the head. Big men with big hands, mustaches and beards, flannel. Solid women with glasses. Blue tipped hair. The lingering aroma of tobacco and mud and snow.

You might be able to pay your ticket with a card, but chances are you have to use cash. Or, incredible, amazing, a check. On your way out, somebody coming in holds the door open for you. In and out, a steady stream of classic Americans: the kind of people politicians like to pretend that they once were. The kind of people country music used to be about. The kind of people Tom Waits used to write songs about. People with hard lives and debt and working class jobs that they hate but they do anyway. A tonic of caffeine and grease to get them on their way and through their day, chased by cheap beer and cigarettes at night.

There are other versions of Linda's, certainly. Delis in New York, taco stands in L.A., meat and two veg places in Georgia, BBQ in South Carolina.  But Linda's seems to stand for them all, an amalgamation of love and sweat and callouses, the fond recollections of a country that seems to exist now, if it ever did at all, only in the dreams of it's citizens. Places like Linda's stand outside of time, and we can rest assured knowing that whatever may come, syrup will flow, bacon will be crispy, toast will never lose it's amazing properties of egg yolk absorption, and pancakes will always come in stacks of two, four, or ten, or twenty, pancakes up to the blue Ohio sky.

--Andrew--

Race, Furniture, and Packing Peanuts: Adventures in Warehouse Temping

"Hemph blah nubbin hemp hemp", said Willie, pointing to a palette of vintage leather suitcases with his free hand. I made a wild and totally unsubstantiated guess and hauled the palette to a different area of the storage room. He seemed satisfied.

 I was relieved. In three days of work, I had understood roughly five percent of anything Willie said to me, but it looked like we were beginning to understand one another. At least I assumed so. For all I knew, he couldn't understand anything I said either.

I picked up this temp warehouse job from a friend. The company I was working for deals in antiques and home furnishes. The first day, I did nothing but help three other guys pick up dressers and mirrors and cabinets and move them to different parts of the building. All of the pieces were: A) very heavy, B) extremely fragile, and C) monstrously heavy.

I'm a little guy, barely scraping 5'6. My entire life I've been dealing with crap from guys who are taller than me. (everybody but Peter Dinklage and professional jockies) Usually said crap takes the form of people assuming I'm not strong enough to lift the other side of a sofa or something. When this started up on day one of the new job, I threw myself in to the work, proving that I could and would lift anything that any other man in the room could.

Six hours later I wept gently in the bathtub while I wished fervently for a massage, a chiropractor, and an acupuncturist, in that order. New resolution: If another man's pride demands that he lift something while you stand and watch...by all means STAND AND WATCH.

Moving furniture for money is an interesting experience. Have you ever helped somebody move to a new house or apartment? You know how it kind of sucks but at least you get free pizza and beer, and you get to hang out with people that you are probably pretty good friends with?

So imagine that, but take away all the good things.

Things got better in a few days. With all the furniture moved, my only remaining job was to pack up antiques into boxes and on to palettes and ship them away to business with names like "Kristin's Korner" and "Fun and Funky Collectibles!!"

This was work that I enjoyed. My mind always demands a puzzle, and looking at an oddly shaped antique and trying to figure out how to wrap it and box it as quickly and efficiently as possible fits the bill. It's like Tetris with cardboard and a tape gun. I also have experience in this area, having worked at a UPS store for two Decembers and two summers during college. Compared to boxing up Christmas presents for irate housewives and stressed fathers three days before Christmas with a line stretching out the door, wrapping up antiques in a quiet storeroom with NPR playing over the radio was a cakewalk.

Interesting note about this job experience: As far as I can tell, I was the only person in the building who didn't fit into uncomfortable racial molds. All of the store owners and employees were white, all of the movers, grunt labor and security guards were black, and all of the janitors were Latin.  All the white people think the black people are lazy and intentionally slow moving, all the black people think the same about all the Latin people in addition to thinking that the white people are making their lives difficult for no good reason. I don't know what the Latin people think but I'm sure it's something similar.

What a mess.

I don't know what anybody thought about me, but I did get some fist bumps from my co-workers and what seemed to be genuine respect at my willingness to work hard. I also got compliments from my white bosses. And friendly nods from the janitors, after I nodded at them. How much of what we perceive as race issues are actually class issues? And how do you tell the difference? Food for thought.

After a few days I enthusiastically Tetrised (tetristed?) myself out of a job. The backlog of items to be shipped had been cleared, almost entirely thanks to me. (This is a direct quote from the boss lady). So back to the drawing board we go. Who knows what sits waiting just around the next corner? Not I.

I just hope it doesn't involve a three hundred pound antique liquor cabinet*.

--Andrew--

*Unless it has liquor in it.

Getting Myself Out There

I read an article recently that listed the "Top Five Things You Should Be Doing (Other Than Job Searching)".

Number three was "use social media and blogging to network and create awareness of your employment needs." The article also mentioned that writing about being unemployed might be therapeutic.

Hi folks. Welcome back to the Jaunt...version 2.0.

So, it's been almost three months to the day since I finished hiking the Appalachian Trail. What have I been doing since then? Job hunting. How's it going?

Ehh...not so great. It's the hardest job market since the Great Depression, no kidding. And it's not like I'm trained for, oh say, generic middle management. I have a very specific skill set that severely limits my options.

Another problem is that I'm looking for work in a very specific area: Cleveland, Ohio.

Fun Facts about Cleveland, Ohio:

1) It was named after a guy named Moses

2) It is a major hub for iron ore shipped from Minnesota

3) It is the 45th Largest City in the country

4) It is kind of hard to find fun facts about Cleveland

I kid, folks. Cleveland actually seems like a pretty groovy place, and if you know anyone in the area, drop my name, won't you? Thanks.

What else? Well, while I've been job hunting I've been freeloading off some friends of mine, Nick and Quel Ramey. I have a bed and a toilet and food. Not bad. I've also been picking up the odd freelance gig and handyman work from time to time. I plan on writing about all of this in the future, today is kind of a "welcome back" post.

Here's the deal. Being unemployed is weird. It just feels weird. It feels useless and emasculating and frankly depressing. But luckily, I think weird is funny. And plenty of funny things have happened to me because I'm unemployed. Consider this blog to be a chronicle of those things.

 I realize this is kind of a stretch, but you got to take your giggles where you can find em, folks.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy reading about my problems. I promise never to whine too much.

But I just may ask to sleep on your couch and have access to your fridge...metaphorically speaking*.

--Andrew--

*Except for you, Nick Ramey. In your case, I meant it literally. As you know.