Here we are again

“Here we are again,” I said to my dog. “Just you and me living our strange little life unsuited for what the world seems to have become.”
Over 50 years ago, at nearby Houghton college (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), I befriended a girl named ***** ********.
I don’t remember why, other than we worked in the college dining hall. ***** racked dishes for the dishwasher, and I began as a “cart-boy.” Meals were served by waiters at four-person tables, and afterward I collected/sorted dishes/glasses/etc and carted them to the dishwasher room.
***** started before I did; with me it was exchange for a summer-job my father scotched. Employ in the dining-hall partially offset the cost of college.
I gravitated toward that dishwasher, mainly as a sub for another employee who became editor of the college yearbook. So ***** and I worked together quite a bit.
I gained the reputation as a “nice guy,” mainly because I avoided hurting my fellow employees — especially the racker girls. There were guys hot to slam heavy dishes into the girls’ hands.
I preferred working with the racker girls so they didn’t have some macho dude trying to smash their hands. (A bleeding-heart liberal — GASP!)
Last year I attended the 50-year reunion of my college class. ***** was there, so we renewed our friendship. ***** and I were the same class, but she didn’t finish Houghton. Her senior year was somewhere else. —Her boyfriend’s mother was dying, so she married that guy before his mother died.
My beloved wife died around four years before the reunion. She didn’t make it, and she was the same class as me.
“I’m so lucky,” I always say. “Knee-replacement, prostate removed, lousy balance, hernia repair, but still here.”
*****’s husband now has some degenerative brain-disease, and became a toddler. —That is, a toddler in an adult body. ***** has to parry this, and has become head-of-household by default.
All I lack is “the best friend I ever had.” One never gets over that. Five years have passed, but I’m still deeply saddened.
Travel is almost impossible. What fun is it without “the best friend I ever had?”
Almost 24 years ago I had a stroke — due to an undiagnosed heart-defect. I recovered fairly well (“miraculously” they say), enough to pass as never having had a stroke.
One of my small remaining stroke-effects is aphasia, difficulty getting words out verbally in my case. Aphasia can also effect writing, or precipitate total inability to communicate. My writing still works extremely well: it’s what I’m doing here.
“Sometimes I think my verbal communication has worsened” = stony silences for lack of ability to get words out. Mental lockup.
Of course it’s now me doing all the speaking; I no longer have a wife to cover for me.
***** and I decided to get together yesterday; including another girl in our class whose husband (also our class) died years ago — another stroke-victim.
We would eat out at the Pittsford-Plaza “Market-Café,” essentially a buffet in a supermarket grocery.
This get-together began on a sour note. ***** arrived missing her purse. She guessed she’d left it atop her car, and it fell off into the parking-lot as she drove out of their apartment complex.
Suddenly our get-together was attempting to get her purse back. We left Pittsford-Plaza and returned to the apartment complex. It wasn’t in the parking-lot, so ***** went to the complex office.
They reported the town police had it. Some kindly gentleman took it to the police. He probably feared leaving it with the complex office, lest they go through it.
So off to the town police we zoomed. It was Saturday, so everything was closed. But a nice lady in uniform appeared with *****’s purse.
Drama ended, we returned to the Market-Café.
The Pittsford-Plaza Wegmans is what I used to call “the jewel-in-the-crown,” Wegmans largest and most majestic supermarket.
Not any more. A larger Wegmans has opened.
The Pittsford-Plaza Wegmans is so large ya need a powered cart to shop it. Its parking-lot is so big they have valet service.
The Market-Café is attached, and has two stories. Buffet offerings and payout are on the first floor, then you eat at table on the second floor.
You scoop what you want from the buffet lines, then $1.94 (or thereabouts) per pound, which the checkout weighs.
This is what the Wegmans in nearby Canandaigua does, although their Market-Café is smaller and less glitzy.
“We’re a supermarket, not a restaurant,” Robert Wegman, deceased, used to say.
Wegmans is a family business.
As soon as Robert died, his son Danny started opening Market-Cafés.
They’re a good idea; I guess they do well. People don’t cook as much as they used to. Often they eat take-out, or hit Mickey-D’s.
Frenzied Wegmans employees in goofy hats handed out free samples, mainly unheated coffee, which they were also hawking in funky bottles. Plus carmelo lotto, chocolate-lotto, etc. At which point I cue Garrison Keillor: “Can’t I just have a cup of coffee?”
******’s husband came along, but was handed off to a friend for “care.” In order to attend I day-cared my dog; what a depressing coincidence.
Food consumed and hubby returned we repaired downstairs to an outside table.
Our classmate left to pursue another visit. The Keed got to observe what life has become as I age. I live in the rural outback, and have little contact with suburban frenzy.
This happened before. Perhaps eight years ago I attended a party for a coworker. It was probably retirement from the newspaper where I worked after my stroke.
The location was hard by the Erie Canal in a ritzy Rochester suburb. Our restaurant was awash with suburban frenzy: people resting in lounge-chairs swilling strange coffee brews topped with whipped creme and chocolate sprinkles.
Cue Keillor again.
I felt completely out-of-it. I feel like civilization has left me behind. I have no interest in Facebook or SnapChat, and my Smartphone can drive me up-the-wall. Every move requires hours of fiddling — that may be a stroke-effect.
Pretty girls strode by heavy with steel pins and body-art. No body-art for this kid! Reminds of graffiti on railroad freight-cars.
A girl walked by with tattoos on her face. NO WAY could I make love to that!
“Wanna go up to ******’s apartment to play dominoes?” ***** asked.
“I wanna get my dog,” I answered.
“You majored in History, and ended up driving bus?” our classmate commented.
“I majored in the good professors,” I said. “That was History. Two instead of one.”
Even though a misfit, I’ve never regretted Houghton.
I also was first in my family to earn a college degree.

• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. Best friend I ever had, and after my childhood I sure needed one. She actually liked me.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• Over 11 years ago I retired from the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern).
• “Mickey-D’s” is of course McDonald’s.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke ended that — I retired on medical-disability. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; the Daily-Messenger in Canandaigua.