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Page 21 |
The Folded Napkin ...
Truckers' Story
(If this doesn't light your fire ... your wood is wet!!!)
I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring
Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a
good, reliable busboy. But, I had never had a mentally handicapped
employee and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my
customers would react to Stevie. He was short, a little dumpy with
the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs
Syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker
customers, because truckers don't generally care who buses tables
as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.
The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the
mouthy college kids traveling toschool; the yuppie snobs who
secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of
catching some dreaded "truck stop germ"; the pairs of
white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every
truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people
would be
uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first
few weeks.
I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my
staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month
my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop
mascot. After that, I really didn't care what the rest of the
customers thought
of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager
to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his
duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not
a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done
with the table.
Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until
after the customers were finished. He would hover in the
background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other,
scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would
scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses
onto cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced
flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his
brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing
his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to
please each and every person he met.
Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who
was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on
their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from
the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him
every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money
was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between
them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group
home.
That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last
August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.
He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or
something put in his heart. His social worker said that people
with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so
this wasn't un expected, and there was a good chance he would come
through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few
months.
A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning
when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing
fine. Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a
little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle
Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight
of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy
beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and
shot Belle Ringer a withering look.
He grinned. "OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he
asked.
"We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to
be okay."
"I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him.
What was the surgery about?"
Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers
sitting at his booth about Stevie's surgery, then
sighed: "Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK," she
said. "But I don't know how he and his Mom are going to
handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by
as it is." Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie
hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables.
Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and
really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own
tables that day until we decided what to do. After the morning
rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper
napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.
"What's up?" I asked.
"I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer and his friends
were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony
Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,"
she said. "This was folded and tucked under a coffee
cup." She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell
onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold
letters,
was printed "Something For Stevie. Pony Pete asked me what
that was all about," she said, "so I told him about
Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and
Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this." She
handed me another paper napkin that had "Something For Stevie"
scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its
folds.
Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said
simply: "truckers."
That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day
Stevie is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said
he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work,
and it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10
times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful
that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I
arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in
the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.
Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he
pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his
apron and busing cart were waiting.
"Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him
and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To
celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on
me!"
I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the
room. I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind
as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder,
I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the
procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was
covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting
slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.
"First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this
mess," I said. I tried to sound stern. Stevie looked at me,
and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had
"Something for Stevie" printed on the outside. As
he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. Stevie stared
at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the
tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned
to his mother. "There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks
on the table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard
about your problems. "Happy Thanksgiving,"
Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering
and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well. But you know
what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and
hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was
busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table. Best worker
I ever hired.
Plant a seed and watch it grow. At this point, you can bury this
inspirational message or forward it fulfilling the need! If you
shed a tear, hug yourself, because you are a compassionate person.
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