"She takes care of me."

Published on Monday, 14 December 2009 00:00

Written by Teri Dunn Chace

Many long years ago, Roadside Magazine ran an a photo essay cleverly entitled “Boy Meets Grill,” celebrating the guy at our local diner or coffee shop who flips pancakes, turns out meltingly crisp home fries, and knows how to do when it comes to eggs “sunny side up” and “over easy.” But what about the ladies who make our visits so comforting and memorable? A marvelous book has just been published, Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress, by Candacy Taylor. It is marvelous because it is a book of integrity and insight. You should buy it immediately (order it through your local bookshop—the publisher is Cornell University Press—or grab it via amazon.com), definitely for holiday gifts, and/or alert Santa.

A quick thumb-through reveals a bounty of terrific photographs, portraits of the waitresses at work, at a counter or beside a booth, with favorite customers; enticing shots of pie being served and coffee being poured, etc. There is something candid and compassionate, but not patronizing, about these images—Taylor has a knack for respectfully capturing the real. Those of us who try to take good photos in such places would do well to study her success here.

However, though handsomely produced, this is not a coffee-table book, not really. Read it! A former waitress herself, Taylor undertook this project to interview and understand the older American waitress after a long night: “On that Friday night I thought to myself, if we are this tired, how do waitresses twice our age (I was in my early 30s at the time) do this, and how do they feel about their jobs? Do they have dreams they have never realized? Are they worn out from the physical and mental demands of the job?...The questions kept coming.” With camera, tape recorder, laptop, and an open mind (there are so many clichés!), Taylor set out to learn about career waitresses, or “lifers,” as they sometimes wryly, or proudly, call themselves.

Counter Culture is not scholarly and dry, it is not a memoir, and it is not a history of waitressing. It is a deep and thoughtful conversation with these women, in their busy urban coffee shops or diners or small-town cafe booths. The answers Taylor found may surprise you. Many make more money than you might think, allowing them to put their children through college and own a nice home and drive a nice car. They minister to their regulars, anticipating their orders as well as their emotional state and health (“when I see sadness in [a customer’s] eyes, that’s when I try to touch on them. I ask ‘Do you feel well?'"). Some actually appreciate the physical demands (“Waitressing helps my arthritis. If I stayed home and did nothing, I would be crippled. My doctor says whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.”) Their rigorous work ethic is an admirable balance of nurturing and practicality, of heart and productivity—they have found meaningful work, and they know it.

When I mentioned I was reviewing this book to a friend who also loves diners and diner waitresses, I asked him "what IS it about them?" His answer was immediate: “She takes care of me.” Sometimes, in this mad, mad world, that’s exactly what we need. God bless these ladies. And I raise my coffee mug to the author for producing such an evocative and wise tribute—would that all us “lifers” could approach everything in life with such grace and good will as do Taylor and her subjects.