ONSC III

Old North Side Cafe III Aging, Retirement and A Salute to Sallee

Dean Dunham

Jim Dunn

The Old North Side Cafe III

first performed April 28, 2016 at Restoration 1894

On The Square in Liberty, MO. 

CAST

Water Street Pete –Larry Harman

Camelot Bob –Dick Brown

City Hall Sam --Shelton Ponder

Manor Hill Mack --Tom Dunn

Ridgeway Ron -- Bob Steinkamp

Gladstone Gus -- David Sallee


Holly Lake Jake --Lee Minor


The Reporter –Cheryl Steinkamp


Stella the Waitress -- Jane Boswell

Director – Jane Boswell

Dean Dunham and Jim Dunn adapted the book

Old North Side Cafe by Jim Dunn into the play.

Music played, arranged and/or written by:

Eyrn Bates and Andrew Sallee

Old North Side Cafe III

Aging, Retirement and A Salute to Sallee

The Reporter:    

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome again to the Old North Side Cafe.  People around here call me the Reporter. I’ve been covering events in this town since Joe Wally first worked on the inter-urban railroad, which, by the way, was located about a stone’s throw away from here.  We are all here tonight to celebrate theater and a retirement.  Along the way you’ll hear some terrible jokes (please laugh anyway), catch a

little Liberty history, and  maybe get a sense that stories and friendship may be  more important than we think.

It’s been my job to follow all the malarkey and general nonsense that goes on at the Old North Side Cafe.  It is a big job! These men and Stella have got a thousand stories. They are the heroes of every one of ‘em.

Bob:    

You bet I’m the hero of every story.  This town needs a hero. They say all great men are either dead or dying, and I feel kind of sick myself.

Pete:    

Shush up, Bob.  Let the woman talk for once.

The Reporter:    

Pete’s talking at Camelot Bob, who thinks of himself as God’s special gift to conservatism and to keeping women in their place.

Bob:     

Kitchen and bedroom!

You know what else I think?  I think socialism is ruining our country and maybe this very city.  Our children got no morals. Terrorists are sneaking into our cities. Government thugs take away our guns. Climate change is a hoax. And anchor babies and immigrants are sucking the life out of this great country.  

The Reporter:     

Well Bob, I gotta' say, that was your usual tortured, albeit mildly amusing, ignorant compilation of conjecture, misunderstandings, Bible quotes, Fox News "facts," hocus-pocus, pseudo-science, and fairy-tales.

Jake:     

Score one!  You got that exactly right, Madam Reporter.

The Reporter:     That guy agreeing with me is Holly Lake Jake.  He’s “kind of” religious and a bona-fide liberal, tree hugging, labor-union-loving sissy boy.   He was an Arkansas preacher boy before he became a college professor, and, brothers and sisters, he can tell a story about his past.  You hardly have to ask him for one.

Jake:    

For example, my father’s name was Willy.  He had a milk route in rural Arkansas. Drove a team of mules out into the countryside each morning taking bottles of fresh milk from the local dairy right into folks’ iceboxes. During the hard times, the story goes, Willy also had a little bootleg liquor in those milk bottles.

Gus:    You taught religion and you dad was a bootlegger?

Jake:     Maybe?  Point is we all are human and there’s no telling what any of us would do to feed our families.

The Reporter:     Next to Jake is City Hall Sam.  He tells a good story too.  He has a lot of stories about growing up as a black person in Liberty.

Jake:  Black? Are you black?

Sam:    You should know!

I’m going to tell my China Slaughter story.  I’ll bet there is not a person in this room that does not know Mr. China.   Now China was the home plate umpire at my little league baseball game.  One time, when a pitch came in that was about a foot outside, Mr. China called it, “strike three.” I was so stunned, I talked back to Mr. China.  “What, that’s no strike” I said.  

Oh, I should not have done that.  Talking back to your elders, and especially a man like Mr. China, was not accepted in the Black community.  And never done in public.   My mother was waiting for me when I got home;  somehow she’d already heard about it.  With her on my case, I cleaned up, put on my Sunday suit and went right to Mr. China’s house, and I apologized for speaking disrespectfully to him in front of everyone. I also apologized to Mrs. Slaughter and to their daughter.  Mr. China, he was a great man.

The Reporter:    

Sam knows a lot of town history. Things you might not know. Like, there used to be a movie theater right where the City

Hall fountain is now.  Sam saw a lot of movies from the balcony, the only place black folks were allowed.

Sam:    

Look out that north window here.  On the opposite side of the County Courthouse, there is a water fountain on the corner. That is the spot where slaves were bought and sold.

(Pause briefly.  Men, bow your heads for a moment.)

Ron:    

I know some Liberty history!  

Reporter:  That guy talking now is our farmer, Ridegeway Ron.

Ron: I rode the old inter-urban down and back to Kansas City with my dad in the thirties.  Take this building we are all in now.  Ain’t a farmer in this county didn’t come to town on a rainy day that didn’t stop in here.  That big old sign out there says 1894, but some kind of building has been here since Liberty was founded almost 190 years ago. This place was the Messick Hotel before it burned. Then a dry goods store got built with the Knights of Pythias Hall located upstairs The Pythian Sisters took this room over in the mid-1900s.

Bob:    I heard tell those Pythian Sisters sure liked to party!

Stella:    You wish Bob.  

Bob:    

Hey, this very room we are in was once called Castle Hall!  You can bet we had more fun than the people sitting at that table. Ha, Ha!  Jewell sorority girls used to have their parties here. We all know what Jewell sorority girls were like!

The Reporter:     You can bet they didn’t “like” you, Bob.

Say, who else can name what used to be in this building?

Pete  (counting them off  in a hurry):   

Slaughter Dry Goods , and S. D. Church & Sons Furniture and Undertaker.

Manor Hill Mack:    This room had dead people in it?

Pete:    

Yep, dead people downstairs anyway.   And then there was a

---grocery store,

---a dime store called Mattingly’s Variety Store

Also, my Dad bought a car right down there on Water Street across from where the Clay County Jail is now!

The Reporter:    

That guy who knows his history is Water Street Pete.  He is the ringleader, headmaster, and Boss Hawg of this  group of men.

Pete:    “Boss Hawg” is right, and I’m proud of it.

Mack:    

We love you, Boss Bacon.  (Speaking directly to the audience):   Sometimes we even call him Uncle Porky.

Pete:  

Listen up!  Boys, we got special guests coming tonight. So shape up! Camelot Bob, take it down a notch:  no “Obama is Muslim” and “Hillary is evil” comments.   These folk might not know you ain’t as bigoted as you sometimes act.  Sam, you and Jake, at least try not to be all squishy and liberal-hearted.

Ridgeway Ron, we don’t care if you are older than dirt and got more money than God.  At least kick the manure off your brain now and then. Stella, will you lay off the women’s lib comments?  And Mack, try to keep your stories about lawyers and politicians out of the gutter.

The Reporter:    

That guy in work clothes is Manor Hill Mack.  He’s the town’s “Gas Man.”  And he’s got some stories to prove it.

Mack:   

This is one of my best.  Got a call one Christmas Eve from Mabel Rickman down at the boarding house.  She smelled gas....  Was afraid  the place might blow up, killing her and everybody staying there.  I crawled back in the basement where the furnace was located.  Nothing was leaking.  I couldn’t smell any gas.  That’s when her dog, Buster, broke wind.  Mabel shouted out:

Stella (as Mable):    

“That’s it, That’s it!   You smell that?  I think the whole house might blow!”

Mack:    

I soaped up a few pipefittings and tightened a few joints for show. Then I declared I had fixed the leak, and told her that her dogs were especially susceptible to gas fumes.  She should keep ‘em out in the shed the rest of the night.  That solved the problem.

Stella:    

Good Lord!  Here it Comes!  Ok Gus, Go ahead, I know you got to say it!

Gus:    Mack, that story still stinks!  

The Reporter:    

Gus is the educator type.  A bit younger than the other guys, he likes to keep things honest and steady.  He loves lawyer jokes and cats.  Watch this:

Pete:   Hey Gus, you like cats?

Gus:    Sure do!

All The Men Together:    They taste just like chicken.  

(More Guffaws at this well-worn joke)

Gus:    

How do you keep a lawyer and a College President from drowning?  (Pause)  You shoot ‘em before they hit the water.

The Reporter:    

Hold up there Rangers! I’m stopping these jokes right now.  Gus is a better man than that.  Gus:  tell ‘em your egg story.

Gus:

My dad was a joker.  He mixed hard-boiled eggs into the fresh eggs he sold the town merchant as a joke.  He was always doing things like that.  And he hated Bill Clinton.  When his grandson put dad on Clinton’s mailing list as a joke;  dad kept every bit of mail he ever got from the Clintons in a file labeled, “CRAP.”

The Reporter:    

Except for Stella, that’s the geezers.  Stella actually runs the place.

Stella:    

Since we are hanging out in this old building tonight and sharing some history, I thought you guys might like to know about a famous Liberty woman for a change.  Just two blocks away on Leonard Street used to be the Clay County Seminary boarding school for young ladies, founded by Professor James Love.  Two of his most famous students were Zerelda Mimms, the wife of Jesse James, and saloon stomping Carrie Nation. The story goes Professor Love, once made Carrie Nation cry because she believed animals had feelings. True story!

Ron:  Carrie Nation made a lot of men cry later in her life.  Just saying.

Bob  (to Stella) :    Do you really think animals have feelings?

Stella:     Yes Bob, I do;  it’s only men like you who don’t have feelings!

The Reporter:    

You go, girl!   Stella is never bested, but her tongue always cuts toward a smile.

Well that’s the crew!  Liberty is lucky to have ‘em.   Just like we are lucky to have this old building, with its Pythian Sisters and dead bodies downstairs.

Unlike this building, we are only here for a short time.  You know, they say you actually die twice.  The second time you die is the last time somebody says your name. We need to tell our stories. How’s about we try to make the best of it tonight.  Let’s just listen in for a bit.

Stella:    

I was thinking the other day about Dr. Bales, the veterinarian.  He was the rock of this community.  A great man.  He would stay up all night with a sick horse and got paid in vegetables and an I.O.U.

Bob:    

Do you know the story about integrating a lunch counter here on the Square?         Not that long ago a black man could not by a fountain drinks in the local drug store (drug stores had lunch counters years ago).  Anyway, I went in there with Pee Wee Summers and ordered a coke.  They said they would put Pee Wee’s drink in a cup so he could go outside and drink it.  That was it!  We stayed and the next day we brought in about 10 of Pee Wee’s black friends and stayed about an hour.

Sam:    

I know about Mr. Gant.  He was the headmaster of the Negro school in our town.  When school were integrated by court order, they kept Mr. Gant and made him the janitor and P.E. coach.  True story.

Pete:    Well, Mizz Reporter, surely you have a story or two about folks from around here.

The Reporter:    

I do collect good stories about good folks doing good.  Sorry, I don’t have any of you in my notes.  

(Reporter:  Insert the story here.)

Ron:    

The other day I was thinking of Harvey Seeley, the barber and town constable.  I miss getting my hair cut by him.

Gus:  

Yep.  I went to him for a while.  But now I just give in and go to one of those chain haircutting places, usually with a female “barber.”

Stella:   

I know women who would snatch you bald-headed for referring to them as “barbers.”

Bob:   

By and large, I despise them all, all hair cutting places and for good reason.

When I was five I got ringworm, so the doctor shaved me bald

without the snatching Stella knows about, and then he forced me to wear a stocking cap treated with a terrible foul-smelling ointment.  I had to wear that thing to kindergarten that spring, through the whole summer, and into first grade!  Each night under a hot lamp, my mom plucked the contaminated white hairs out of my head with a pair of tweezers.  I hated it, it hurt, I cried, and I kept muttering, “Someday.”  Eventually, I had normal hair.

When I was eight, my dad bought hair clippers to save money.  

Every two weeks, Dad appeared, clippers in hand, saying, “Bobby, come here, I want to cut your hair.”  I ran, he chased, I hid, he found me, he dragged me back to the Torture Den in the kitchen.  The clippers were cheap, and they pulled out hairs.  I tried to escape, he tried to cut, and I ended up with tufts of hair and a bleeding cut somewhere, usually on my ear.  I would try to fix the mess with Butch Wax, muttering “Someday.”

For a while in high school I did go to a beauty shop because my mom made some sort of tradeoff deal with a friend, and my dad was glad to get out of the struggle, because I was getting stronger.

Pete:   But no more reasonable, as we all know.

Bob:   

Guys did not go to beauty shops in those days, despite what Gus does.  I parked the car on the Square, slid down the alley, and snuck into the place in evenings.  It was too girly.  The woman was more gentle than Dad, but then she moved away, and I by then started going for the standard, actually substandard, village haircut.   “Someday.”

Jake:   

I am all sympathy for you now.  Substandard was the standard in my town, too.  One time an assistant football coach dared to come into the barber shop on a Saturday morning after a loss on the previous night, and while everyone in the place was taunting him, the barber gave him a high and white on the left side and left it shaggy with a definite sideburn on the right side.  We never knew whether Wally did it on purpose.

Bob:     

I just won’t go to a girly beauty shop.  I am a wise adult male!

Stella:   

Bob, Bob,  Bob.  Come on.  There is more to your story.  You know you have gone to We Could Curl Your Hair out on the strip mall.

Pete:   What’s this?   I thought real men, wise adult males, all of them, kept out of such places.  Who wants to sit around with women with curlers in their hair talking about recipes and bad sex?  Surely Bob didn’t ever and doesn’t now!  Tell us, Stella.

Stella:  

If Bob didn’t get into the habit of saying “Someday” after every

visit to the barbershop, and if he didn’t continue griping about his hair between times, his wife wouldn’t have taken action.  She finally just made an appointment at We Could Curl Your Hair and drove him to it.

I have heard all about it.  When Bob entered the salon, two women were having their nails done and talking politics:

The Reporter  (as a woman):  

“My husband thinks he’s some kind of macho sex machine.  But the only time I ever get heated up is under this hairdryer.”

Stella:   Whined one of the women.  And the other one said:

The Reporter  (as a woman):   

“Actually, I think Bill Clinton’s a lot more interesting.”

Stella:   

Bob was bolting for the door at the mention of the ex-president

when Pauline purred,

The Reporter  (as Pauline): You must be Bob.

Stella:  

Pauline has a sexy low voice when she wants to, a gorgeous pile of red hair, and an ample bosom.

The Reporter  (as Pauline):   

Have a seat honey;  I’ll be with you in a minute.

Bob:   

Come on, Stella;  where did you ever hear this hogwash?  I never. . .

Stella:   

Doing your “Center of the Universe” act again, Bob?  You guys aren’t the only customers who come in here regularly and talk about their lives and bad sex.

Bob:  You wouldn’t believe that place!  What a mess it is!

Ron:   So you were there after all.

Bob:   

Running the chair next to Pauline’s was a guy--a GUY, this is--in black ballet slippers, gold lame pants, and a puffy black and white checked shirt!  He was dancing around a kid, say ten years old, giving him a Mohawk.  It was terrible!  I know what we used to call guys like him....

Stella:  Actors!

Bob: No,  it was more like. . .

Jake:   Enough, Bob.  We know your “ignorant” vocabulary.

Bob:   

The zipper on his pants was on the side!  I just thought

“debauchery!”  I just thought, “What would the little boy’s parents think if they knew!”   I would sue if that happened to my kid!

Stella:   But Bob,  his mother was there wasn’t she?  The boy liked his Mohawk, and his mom agreed when he said, “Mom, this rocks!”

Bob:    And then she bought him $80 worth of gel and highlighter agents!

Stella:  

Actually this male stylist, Louis, is an incredibly handsome young man, and Pauline is truly gorgeous.

Ron:   

This is pretty interesting, Bob in a hair salon!  Tell us more, Stella.

Stella:   

When Pauline called Bob over to her chair, he went right over.

Mack:   Did he knock anyone over getting there?

Stella:   She tilted his head back, and it brushed her bosom.

Pete:   I believe you earlier said her “ample” bosom.

Stella:   The place smelled like the beauty shop of his youth.  Pauline asked,

The Reporter  (as Pauline):    So, what will it be?

Stella:   

And big, brash strong-willed Bob, stuttered out:  “J-j-j-just a sh-sh-shampoo and a trim.”

Bob:   Stella, no, no.  You’re making this up.  OR, you’re taking it out of context.  Anyway, my wife set me up!

The Reporter  (as Pauline):   

We don’t get many full heads of hair like yours in here.  Usually men are too arrogant and macho to come here.  It’s nice to meet a man who has some sensitivity.

Pete:    

OK , guys;  I can see that we need to treat Bob with the same sensitivity that he shows to all persons.  Clearly this is a touchy story for him.

The Reporter  (as Pauline):   

You have wonderful hair!  Louis, come here and look at Bob’s hair.  Just feel his hair!  Isn’t it great!   We could do so much with it!  Oh, Louis, I see what you’re doing there.  A wave would be nice;  and we could do a few cone rods across the top.  Oh, I like that on you, Bob;  that’s really handsome;  you’re really handsome when you have a good-looking style!

Stella:    

And Bob murmurs, you could barely hear him, “I really just want a trim, something like Donald Trump.

The Reporter  (as Pauline):    

Oh, you can’t be serious.  Hair like yours is a treasure.  Properly styled, it could make you look ten years younger. You’ll be so handsome.

Bob:    Stop, just stop.  I’ll tell my own story!  It took me three hours to get out of there!

Stella:   

And our Bob bought $119.99  worth of hair essentials with  Avocado- Passion Fruit Enriched Shampoo, Palm Oil Conditioner, and an all-natural Silk Treatment Spray.

Gus:    

Bob, is your hair organically grown or is it genetically modified?

Bob:    

I gave all that rubbish to my wife, and early next morning I got an appointment with Harvey Seeley;  he fixed me up as best he could, and I wore a Royals hat for a couple of weeks until my hair seemed normal again.

Stella:  At Christmas Bob got a perfumed personal note from Pauline saying that she missed him.

Pete:   

Bob, did you get a similar message from Louis who was missing you, too?

Bob:    Laugh all you want, but “Someday” finally arrived, and I didn’t like it.

Gus:    

I get my hair cut several times a year at one of those so-called “girly” places.  I rarely get the same attendant twice in a row. It’s just a basic  business transaction.  She or he cuts, I pay.

However, Bob, you went once and now enjoy a perfumed relationship.

Bob:    

I’m putting up with everything:  ordinary haircuts and all the jibes I get from you guys.  No more “someday”;  I’m good.

Pause.....

Pete:   Well, Ron, has the spring planting begun?

Ron:           Yep, been getting into the fields.

Mack:   

I remember spring on the farm up in Iowa, the smells, the colors, the different green colors!  I’m glad I’m not farming the way my dad did, but I have great memories of growing up on the farm.

Bob:   

Yeah, those days are in the past for me, too.  But, I can still remember the sounds. I can still hear the chug-chug of the old Farmall tractor, the meowing of the cats in the milk house,

gathering eggs early in the morning in the noisy chicken house.

Mack:   

And the smell of wet feathers.  Oh, do you remember seeing headless chickens running around until they fell over?

Jake:   

Yeah, farm life wasn’t always sweetness and light.  Headless

chickens!

Ron:   Those were the days when 200 acres were a big spread, more than a quarter section.  My dad drove horses to pull the plow and even then without a GPS he could make a row straight and true.  And when I was a kid, milking ten cows was a lot.

Pete:   

The farmer is a true, extraordinary venture capitalist, betting his life savings against nature year after year, and counting on hard work to make the difference.

Mack:   

My Grandparents never recovered after a tornado hit their barn.  Grandpa was milking the cows when it hit. The milk shed was left standing, and he and the cows were untouched.        BUT the barn was left 30 feet away merely splinters. Gramps he lost most of his machinery.  We all drove up to help, that’s what families do. My dad took along his savings, but eventually the debts overwhelmed  the farm.

Bob:   

Do you remember nursing a sick calf, or walking out

to milk on a really cold morning and taking the heavy pails of

milk to the separator, or seeing steam rising from fresh manure?

Stella:    

It’s my mom I think of on the farm:  the white lace curtains blowing in over the dishwashing , pumping the water next to the sink, all the smells of frying chicken and homemade bread. I remember mixing out the bread dough in the big green bowl and kneading the dough to get out the air bubbles and to get the yeast and water mixed in well;  oh, the smell of that bread baking!  I love to think of that white-fronted stove which she kept very clean and managed never to chip the porcelain.  She had a knick-knack shelf with a little salt-and-pepper collection and some tiny toy flowers in a little vase.  When dad installed a ceiling fan in the kitchen, she couldn’t have been happier had he proposed a trip to Chicago!

Did your mom allow you to clean out the bowl after putting the cake batter into the pan?  I was happy with the ceiling fan in the summer, but I was really happy to eat the leftover batter from that bowl.

Mack:  Here’s a memory I’ll bet you can’t match.  My grandmother kept a glass of tea, real dark, on the window ledge.  Every morning she’d dip her comb in it and run it through her hair.  She was fighting the gray as she got older.

Ron:  

Remember going with your dad or grandpa to the seed store? Those old guys would sit around an old potbellied  stove, laughing and gossiping, the seed bags piled up all around them, and the wood popping in the stove?  One time they tried to teach me how to tell a left-handed cat from a right-handed one.  Finally they just laughed at me.

Gus:   

We took car trips to the farm on weekends.  “The corn is knee-high on the 4th of July,” we always said.   Sometimes we’d go in the fall  after leaves had dropped, and Grandpa made a huge pile of raked-up leaves by the picnic table and we’d jump off into the pile over and over.  If I got bored, I’d hide out in the chicken coop;  I was excited to be surrounded by so many living things, clucking and laying eggs.

Pete:   

Gus, you were a weird kid, truly weird;  a town kid crawling

around in hen droppings!

Jake:   

Farm people work hard.  The men sometimes walked in

from the barn near midnight, thinking over tomorrow’s jobs. Every muscle was sore, and deep exhaustion crept into every joint.  But, that moment was real for them, ....that life was real for them, there was a sense of being where one was supposed to be.

The Reporter:   

Sam, have you about gagged on all this farmyard rhapsody?  .

Sam:   

My people worked hard, too. What you tell me about farming is nothing new to me.  The farmers you talk about did what they had to do--fixed broken machinery with baling wire and put down an injured animal.   And in our town community, we all did what we could and took pleasure knowing we had done the best we could.

  

Jake:    

Do you ever wonder what we can do now that we’ve moved away from those old times?  As Sam says, we most often did the best we could.

Pete:   

Think about this old building.  It’s been repurposed and is going strong.  It has had a lot of uses since 1894, and it’s going to have a lot more.  Have we got a chance to be repurposed?

Gus:    

Pete, are you feeling down about your life?  Do you have any reservations about being of service now that you are retired?

Mack:    

Well, we are older now, and Ron has achieved Old Man of the Dirt status.

Ron:    

My wife has been trying to teach her doctor not to suggest that  she is “old” or “older” or “elderly.”

Reporter:  That’s because she ain’t!  Don’t you forget that!

Bob:    Sounds like a case of Political Correctness!

Jake:  

So, Bob how to you refer to your age in life?  Or are you in denial about that, too?

Bob:

First, I don’t interpret my age when I go to doctor’s offices.  I just tell them my birth date.  I know modern education has kept most of the workers and nurses from being able to do the arithmetic. Second, I prefer “mature” to any other age distinction.

Pete:

“Mature?”  I suggest that your “mature” is personal political correctness by another name.

Ron:    

I’ve got a retirement riddle for you:  Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?  

Answer:  The term comes with a 10% discount.

Pete:  But I’m serious.  Can we still be useful like this old building is useful?

Mack:    

One contribution we already make is friendship.  Why do I come here to the Cafe so often.  Why do any of you come so often.  Why, for example, do Jake and Bob, so very different, help each other out year after year?  That’s useful.

Sam:    

Like when Bob showed up to help Jake to paint that room. Even Bob and Jake have each other’s backs!

Jake:    Of course we do.  

Bob:    If he could only see good reason once in awhile!

Gus:    

Mack is right;  we contribute friendship to each other.  And we can surf on that week in and week out.  Bob wouldn’t have as rich a life if it weren’t for Jake calling him out.  Along with friendship comes responsibility.  And compassion.  It wasn’t compassion that caused you guys to let me join you, but since I’ve been along for the ride with you, I have seen you old guys act out of compassion many times.

Mack:   

Well, for sure our stories sometimes have had depths of feeling in them.  I remember, Gus, when you told us about how Stella opens the Cafe on Thanksgiving for the lonely and homeless.

Stella:   

My daddy used to say, *You can’t stop the storms but you can shovel your neighbor’s walk.”

Mack:    

And my wife always said, “We never know the good we do, but  feel it as a dim reflection – in a stranger’s smile, in sparkling lights across the night sky, in simple pleasures.”

Pete:    

Those who stay on the road find it flattens now and then.  The return of the ordinary, the blessing of consistency, and the passing of time are the comforts of the old North Side Cafe.

The Reporter:    

Well, you can depend on these guys to wind up to pitch a saying or two.   But that brings up another feature of the life of

this group:   dependability.  You guys are dependably good-hearted and dependably cantankerous, too. So, to continue

the parallels,  this building is also dependable.  Though it was empty in recent  decades, it was well built and held down this corner of the Historic Liberty Square very well.  

Mack:   

Do you think the idea that we all share rural and small-town lives that figures into being useful?  Does that have worth, I wonder?

Jake:    

Most of the time we talk about relationships.  Even though we kinda gossip sometimes, we usually focus on our humanity and our relationships.  We all value family and community and working together and being together.

Bob:    

For a minute there, Jake, I thought you were running for Republican office.  Do you want to add words about Law and

Order, too?

Pete:    

Stop right there!  Time for a slight diversion.  If we are talking about whether or not we geezers are useful like this building and the Square itself are useful, what can we say about what we do in retirement?

Bob:   

Speaking of retirement, it says here David Sallee is going to retire as president of William Jewell College,” (Bob is trying to show off is new $850 iPad.)  “I guess it is about time for Dr. Sallee to step aside and let a less experienced rookie screw things up."

Gus:

What? Who said that?  It’s news to me! Sallee can’t be old enough to retire. 

Sam:   What? He still looks like a kid.

Gus:  You got that right! He’s still a young man!

Ron:  

HA! Sam, don’t you know that a sure sign that you are getting old is when people start saying how young you look?

Stella:  Well, I feel sorry for Mary Sallee. A retired husband means his wife has a new full-time job.

Jake: Mary just got herself a new full time job with a lot less pay!”

Bob:    

Dr. Sallee has got a few lessons to learn about retirement," (Bob is finger wagging.)

“First, he will find that you get so busy in retirement  you may have to go back to work as a puffed-up consultant to get some rest."   (The men groan, some throw napkins) You know I'm right!!

Second, retirement is like going down to Branson. You should try to enjoy it as much as you can in the few minutes before you run out of money. 

But seriously, Sallee will learn retirement is a time of peace, happiness, less stress and sublime contentment; that is until Obama comes on the nightly news, or he has to watch Hillary running for president! 

Stella:   

Tell me Bob, Don’t you have anything to do in retirement besides hating Hillary?

Ron: 

I've been attending lots of professional development opportunities since I retired --they're called naps.

Pete:    Seriously, what can we say about retirement for David Sallee?

Bob:  

He’s been a good president.  And I have liked him a lot since he came.

Sam:   

I like him.  He makes it easy to live in Liberty and think well

of the College.  He’s just plain a nice guy.

Stella:    The whole town is going to miss them at the College.

Pete:   

I like the fact that they never put on airs.  Their roots are the kinds that we all recognize, and they connect with a lot of us.

Ron:   

My farming never took me to the College very much, but once I met him, he always remembered my name.  That’s hard to believe.

Mack:   Same for me.  He’s always friendly, always knows my name, always shakes my hand.  I like him too.

Gus:   

Careful here; sure, he’s a great man and all, but I doubt that he wants to be a candidate for North Side Cafe Sainthood.  I wonder what he plans to do in retirement.

Stella:   

Do you expect he’ll fall into wasteful lives like you guys?  Will you be making room for him here at the liars’ table?

Bob:   

Bake more pies and keep the coffee hot.   There’ll be room for Dr. Sallee here, Stella.

Pete:   

So, what advice can we offer Sallee about retirement besides being couch potatoes?

Ron:    Most of my townie friends have gotten themselves bigger-than-needed riding lawnmowers.  They seem to like mowing at church and at widows’ homes, even helping out single moms with lawn upkeep can be right neighborly.

Mack:   When people ask me how I spend retirement, I say, “Going to doctors’ offices.”

Sam:   No joke,  sounds like “poor me” though

Jake:     

Maybe we should remember there are no guarantees and think about not postponing our dreams.   Maybe we should take our newfound time to remember to tell our wives that we love them each morning or tell our children what they mean to us more often.  

         

Stella:    Women need to do the same thing.

Ron:    I’ve got another riddle:  Among retirees, what is considered formal attire?    Answer:  Tied shoes.

Bob:  I have to use Velcro!

Jake:   

Ron, do you think David might get caught in the arcade-pizza place calamity that happened to you?

Ron:   

You see before you a damaged man, a man damaged by little kids, one of whom is my grandson, Garrett.  I’m going to have some help telling the story.  The Reporter here is going to tell us what Garrett said, and the rest of the story will occur.  It started when I responded to the plea:

The Reporter (as six-year-old Garrett):  Please, Papa, please take us to the Pizza-Arcade place for my birthday party.  

Ron:    

It was six six-year-olds cranked up on excitement and later, on birthday cake.  I packed them all into our old three-seater van and drove them over to Gladstone to the Chucky Cheese.

I hadn’t even turned off the motor when they evacuated the van as if high water was washing right down upon us!  

It was then I heard the screeching of brakes;  the kids had rushed across the parking lot traffic as if they were trying to get me instantly jailed for child abuse.

The management had stalled them just inside the door until I

arrived, and then they yelled off into the interior.  I found a place to sit and try to watch them.  I should have had a lifeguard’s tower to spot them.  But they soon found me.  And Garrett led off:

The Reporter (as six-year-old Garrett):  We need some more tokens!

Ron:    And the others would appear shouting:

The men (as six year olds;  space these out):    

Give us more tokens.  

Ron:   

It was a constant demand.  I got to counting and wished Garrett’s mother had dressed all six of them in matching T-shirts.  I’m pretty sure I handed out tokens to nine kids.

Soon it was time to go off to the Birthday Corner and have cake and drinks.  There was quite a lot of stir even there.  It was like a sit-com called “Banshees, Shambles, and Chaos,” and I guess the whole 90 minutes cost me nearly $300. Luckily no one got hit by a car racing across the parking lot.  No one knocked a senior citizen down, no blood was shed, no one died, and so far, there’ve been no lawsuits.

Bob:   And you’d do it again;  you’d even hint at wanting to be asked.

Ron:    Give me a year to recover.

Pete:    I don’t want to tell David Sallee that story, at least not until after he’s had a calming piece of Stella’s pie and sufficient coffee to make him mellow.

Gus:   

However, there’s no telling what will happen if Mary finds him

moping around the house once too often.  He maybe ought to plan expeditions of a kind he likes with the grandkids; otherwise stuff might fall into his lap that he doesn’t want to be anywhere near.

Jake:    

Well, he managed a campus with a thousand kids, so I guess he

knows how to organize life around him!   I know some retirees who have enrolled in classes at Jewell;  that’s another possibility in retirement.

Bob:    And if you cut class, no one calls your parents!

Reporter:   

Behind all this chatter, the men cannot help but wonder how much time they have, and how many conversations are left at the Old North Side Cafe.

These old boys know better than most that life itself is so fleeting and ephemeral that the concept of retirement is almost comical.  They also know that the only things that last or mean anything are your good works and the moments when you make a difference for good in someone else’s life.

David and Mary Sallee do that pretty well.

Pete:    

Well,  all of us here at the Cafe, wish David and Mary the best possible years AJ:  After Jewell.  And as the Boss Hawg of this outfit, I call them both to join us up here for applause and a chance to say some words for us to hear.

David and Mary Salle say a few words

Sing the Jewell Alma Mater