Eastside Messenger - September 22nd, 2019

PAGE 4 - EASTSIDE MESSENGER - September 22, 2019
eastside
Messenger
(Distribution: 13,559)
Rick Palsgrove................................Eastside Editor
eastside@ columbusmessenger.com
Published every other Sunday by
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IN MEMORIUM • ARMED FORCES
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columns
A life of work leads to memorable tip
Job satisfaction and long-term career
goals were not on the mind of my mother as
a 14-year-old graduate of the Austrian
school system looking for employment in
post-World War II Vienna.
Yes, age 14 is the graduation age (they
do things differently in Europe) and no, it
was not an easy task to find a job amid the
ruin and rubble of a city recovering from
the bombing brought about by the war.
Going shop-to-shop, she asked, inquired
and begged for a position to earn money to
help her family, not unlike thousands of
other teenagers and adults displaced by
years of Nazi and Russian occupation.
She finally found employment–on a
production line stuffing cotton into stainless
steel lighters. Later she sold knives at
festivals to country folk believing the company’s
“will never lose its sharpness” hype
and then served travelers at an outdoor
restaurant, often working 80 hours a week.
My mother was 19 when four nations
patrolled quadrants of the city. My father
was serving in the Army at the time and,
while it was not love at first sight–my
mother was and still is an independent
woman–they fell in love and got married.
After coming to America, getting settled
and raising me, my mother went back to
work at a restaurant on Parsons Avenue
near a railroad complex.
You might not think of Parsons Avenue
as a destination spot for fine dining (the
building is still there today, albeit boarded
up and in a terrible state of disrepair), at
one time, Johnson’s Restaurant served the
movers and shakers of Columbus, including
mayors, lawyers and a young Jack
Nicklaus.
Tables were covered in linen, well-maintained
fish tanks functioned as living portraits
of sea life and a special Japanesethemed
room featured low level seating.
Waitresses like my mother were dressed in
white uniforms and knew many of the customers
by name, always addressing them
formally as Mr. or Mrs.
While the restaurant still served railroad
workers during the afternoon rush at
a lunch counter on the opposite side of the
building, low-level lighting and elevated
seating areas were hallmarks of the finer
dining area.
Although located outside of the downtown
loop, Johnson’s was still considered
one of the city’s “fancier” establishments
and tips reflected that status. It was not
uncommon for my mother to receive a $3
tip, considered high for the time.
This brings me to the crux of my story.
I asked my mother the other day, “What
was the best tip you ever received while
working as a waitress?” Her response surprised
me. “25 cents.”
She told me that one evening a couple
came in.
The man was dressed in clean, but older
As a kid in the 1960s, I and my neighborhood
cohorts usually had two pairs of
shoes: tennis shoes and dress shoes.
Tennis shoes meant fun and freedom.
They were called tennis shoes even though
we wore them for every activity except
playing tennis.
Another name for this type of shoe is
“sneakers.” Today sneakers have branched
out to many different designs with varying
names for many purposes including: running
shoes, walking shoes, basketball
shoes, and so on. There are also I’m sure
tennis shoes made specifically for tennis
these days, too.
Our old tennis shoes were pretty much
some canvas sewed to a slab of rubber, not
like today’s version that aim to support foot
and body. The epitome of tennis shoes back
then were Chuck Taylor Converse, especially
the high tops with the circular logo. If you
had a pair of Chuck Taylors you knew you
had made it.
Dress shoes meant confinement and
structure. They were worn to church and
other formal occasions. We called them
hard shoes because that’s the way they
felt.
Where our old tennis shoes could be
tossed in the washer to be cleaned; dress
overalls and the
wife was dressed
in a plain, but
pressed dress. She
was timidly clutching
a small handbag and
a handkerchief.
They were seated,
looked over the menu and selected the
most inexpensive meal–ham steak, which
was obviously an extravagant dinner for
them.
While their clothing was in stark contrast
to diners around them, my mother realized
this was a special outing for the couple and
still treated them with the same care and
attention as her regular customers.
When they were finished, the man
called my mother over. He turned to his
wife and said, “See, I told you I was going
to bring you to a nice place.” He then
turned to my mother and thanked her
before handing her the quarter and saying,
“Here, honey, this is for you.”
When I heard this story, I cried. My
mother did as well.
It amazed me that here was a woman
who lived through a war, lean times trying
to find a job, a move across the ocean and
employment in the service industry with a
foreign accent, but her best memory of
work was a 25 cent tip.
My mother made the day for that couple,
but they gave her a memory for a lifetime.
Linda Dillman is a Messenger staff writer.
If the shoe fits
shoes had to be polished,
usually on
Saturday night before
the next morning’s
Sunday School class.
Places
Linda
Dillman
Editor’s Notebook
Rick
Palsgrove
Since we were kids and constantly
growing, our parents often had to take us
to the shoe store for new shoes to fit our
larger feet. No other store back then had
the feel of a shoe store. A shoe store had
unique equipment, like the metal silver
and black measurement apparatus that
gauged the size of your feet or the smooth
metal shoe horn used to slip one’s foot into
an unforgiving, stiff new dress shoe.
Old style shoe store clerks were attentive
and serious. It’s like they realized
their task had a scientific element to it
with all the measuring involved, as well as
artistic and physical factors as the shoes
had to both look good and feel good. They
embraced the old saying about understanding
a person by imagining what it’s like to
walk a mile in their shoes.
Rick Palsgrove is editor of the Eastside
Messenger.