Saturday, I helped in Jackson with a fundraiser for Shriners. We operate 23 hospitals and clinics across the US, Canada, and Mexico where we treat kids with orthopedic and neurological problems plus treatment for cleft lip and palate. I’ll go out on a limb and say I think we have the best pediatric burn center in the country at Galveston, Texas. If you want to know more about what the hospitals and clinics do, ask me. I’ll talk your ears off.
This fund raiser was one of our group’s big ones, a 100-gun raffle with a barbecue lunch. I was on the serving line helping to plate to-go orders. My job was to put a chicken leg quarter on each plate. Bend, pick up a leg quarter, stand, place it in the Styrofoam box, repeat. Our line built between 450-500 plates. My back was telling me all about it the next day.
Our all-volunteer plating team laughed and joked and had fun, just exactly what we should have been doing. I got to visit with old friends and made a couple of new ones.
We did hit a little rough patch, though. Despite our best efforts turning out plates we had a period where we just couldn’t keep up with demand. With non-professionals, some of whom had never done anything like it at all, that was to be expected. Some folks had to wait in line for as long as 20 minutes to get their plates. Most were patient, but a few were not. A couple of people were quite vocal in their complaints. The ladies who were taking the tickets and filling orders were patient and kind, even when they wanted not to be patient and kind.
I’m not that patient and my milk of human kindness would have turned to cottage cheese in their place.
After the plates were all served, the winning tickets recorded, the floors all swept and the dishes all washed my wife and I stopped for dinner at one of our favorite Jackson restaurants, just across the parking lot from our hotel. We usually sit at the bar because we can seated faster. That’s what we did Saturday.
We splurged on char-grilled oysters and a shrimp and crab dip appetizer. The dip came out quickly. In fact, we got that before our cocktails reached us. Did I say we were seated at the bar?
From my seat I could see our bartender working at her station. She seemed a little slow and unsure while she was mixing drinks. One of them was a house specialty with a “secret” recipe. I know just enough to understand the proportions are a little persnickety and even being a little bit off can change the flavor. Her proportions were off.
One of the other bartenders was a familiar face. She recognized us from previous visits. I mentioned that the other young lady seemed a little slow. Our familiar face told us the other one was new to bartending and still learning, but that she worked hard, paid attention, and wanted to learn.
It took a little longer than I expected for our oysters to come out. I could see the oyster guys at work. One was shucking, two were cooking. The fourth guy plated the dishes and gave direction to the team. I was close enough I could hear him talk to the team. It didn’t take me long to figure out that both cooks were fairly new to their jobs and were still learning-kind of like our serving team earlier that day.
Our familiar face bartender talked to a few customers who were more impatient than we were. She was patient and kind, just like our ladies were earlier that day. She then did what she could to help and speed things up, just as our patient and kind ladies did earlier that day.
Meanwhile, the new bartender and the oyster cooks kept on working and got a little quicker with each order.
After all, they were learning, just like we did earlier in the day.
