Lessons From a Truck Stop Diner

Occasionally, I get an e-mail that makes me stop and think.  The one that follows is a great example of what it means to be part of a functional family, which is what God has called His church to be.  Read it and see if you don’t agree.  (The author is unknown, at least to me, but if it belongs to someone you know, I will gladly give credit where it is due!)

“I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Steve. 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 Steve. He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down 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 to school, the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded "truck 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 Steve so I closely watched him for the first few weeks. I shouldn't have worried.

After the first week, Steve had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck 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 Steve 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 put the dishes and glasses onto his 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, which 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 Steve 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 Steve 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 Down syndrome often had heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, 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. 

Fannie, my head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the   

good news. Bell Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of the 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Fannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look. He grinned. "OK, Fannie, what was that all about?" he asked.

"We just got word that Steve 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?"

Fannie quickly told Bell Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Steve'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." Bell Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Fannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables.

Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Steve 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, Fannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and funny look on her face.

"What's up?" I asked. "I didn't get that table where Bell 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 Steve". "Pony Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told him about Steve 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 Steve" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds.

Fannie 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 Steve 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, met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back. Steve 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, Steve, 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, Steve, is clean up this mess," I said. I tried to sound stern. Steve looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had "Something for Steve" printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. Steve 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 that 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, Steve, with a 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.”

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!  Family!  When one is in need, the rest gather around to help.  That’s family.  When one hurts, the others surround him/her to bring encouragement and love.  That’s family.  When one can’t see where the next step is to be placed, family members guide the steps.  God has called us to be a family.  A functional family.  Not to fight, bicker and complain, but to love, uphold and lift up.  Functional families build up rather than tear down.  Functional families work to strengthen another’s weaknesses rather than shutting them out because of their shortcomings.  Functional families talk to rather than about each other.  And functional families support in the face of crisis rather than back away.  

Tell me--are you a functional family member?