Setting The Stage

We 'set the stage' pretty good for the new Superior to emerge last week. We didn't get the thousands of people for the Home and Building Tour we thought we might, but we did draw upwards of a thousand over the week-end. The volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce did a real fine job of welcoming the folks and making them feel at home. People were staged in two areas, the Main Street area for the Home and Building Tour and south of town at the grammar school for the Art and Antique Fair. Bill and I spent most of our week-end at the Main Street end, greeting visitors. Tina hadn't given me a specific spot to be in, so I spent the better part of two days parked in front of the Chamber office on Main Street, showing folks where to get their tickets, then helping direct them to start their tour. It took a lot of talking but (ahem! if I do say so myself) I'm good at that!

Sometimes, the people would pull up to the curb and get out of their cars, looking around our old town sort of nervously, like they expected some old miner would ascend on them with a pick and shovel. And I would move toward them, exclaiming what a perfect day they'd picked to visit our town or wasn't that necklace she was wearing "just exquisite!" and show them where to go get their tickets and in that brief moment of me talking, you could just watch their hesitation and anxiety melt away and they'd stride into the Chamber office. Bill spent his days at the old high school directing traffic and helping oldsters ascend the two flights of steps into their bygone school days of a building. On Sunday, he manned a post at the old Magma Club, the social club for miners in the long ago days, answering myriad questions about the town's history.

Just an aside here, yes, I kept my ears open and I learned a lot about the history too. More than I knew before. That during the Teens, Twenties and Thirties and possibly even into the Fifties, there were three (yes, sir... THREE!) houses of ill repute in our Main Street. The most popular one seemed to be the one the town hall is housed in now, because it had two upstairs bedrooms that looked out over Main Street (one room looking east toward Apache Leap and the other looking west toward Pickett Post) and the married men liked this whore house the best because that way they could look out and see if the Little Woman was wandering the streets looking for her man. This is the same building, by the way, that does have an active spirit in it, she's been photographed by some ghosthunters, a grim looking lady dressed in black lace scowling over at the photographer. But gee, now that I know the story, I'm wondering if that grim looking lady might not be one of the cuckolded wives, scowling about the state of affairs she found herself in. Sounds good to me!

Anyway, back to the Home Tour... I digress. After a busy Saturday morning greeting visitors, at one, I hustled over to the bakery/bistro to help out. Bert was short handed and very busy! The brunt of the visitors looked like they had picked his cafe to lunch in. As I headed in, Bert was out in front grilling chicken and sausage and said there'd be no baking but that I could pitch in and wait tables and help make sandwiches.

Now... that's flattering, but let me tell you a secret. For all of my almost sixty years, I have never actually got to wait tables for a living. I've always thought this would be a pretty nifty way to make your keep. Moving around a crowded room of folks eating, feeding them and making them happy. What's not to like about that? Well, as this seems to be my year for making my dreams come true... I got this wish too! The tables were all full, but only half were actually eating. The order taker was also the only waitress and as she flashed her wild eyes at me as I entered to wash up, I could tell this wasn't going to be a 'piece of cake'. Sandwich Girl was up to her elbows slicing rolls and avocado for sandwiches. She looked at me and gasped, "Thank God you're here!" and I looked blankly back, and said simply, "You'll have to tell me what to do. I only bake. I haven't done sandwiches." Waitress Girl came back in and slapped a sheaf of orders at Sandwich Girl and barked, "Get out there and take some orders. Help me out!" I nodded. (I can do this! How hard can this be?) as Pizza Girl came careening out of the back kitchen, barking for a platter for a hot pizza out of the oven.

I approached the first table, a huge smile on my face. There were four ladies sitting there. I remembered them from the morning. They were from Mesa. One of them was wearing a little rhinestone hat with valentines on it. They'd been so cheery and happy when they'd arrived for the Home Tour. "How are you ladies doing?" I cooed, standing at their table. "We want our lunch," Rhinestone Valentine said through clenched teeth. "We've waited an hour for it!" "Oh, my, I'm sorry!" (I was too. I can't fake these things!) "Let me see what the hold up is!" I fled back to the kitchen. Sandwich Girl was slicing through bread and she'd been joined by Pizza Girl who was heaping salad on plates, as Waitress Girl buzzed in and out barking orders and generally looking like she'd rather be anywhere else than where she was. Dishwasher Girl (turns out, it was her first day on the job) stolidly stood at the sink, back to us, washing pots and pans. "There's a group of ladies who said they've waited an hour for their lunch," I told Sandwich Girl. "I know!" she moaned, checking a pan of sandwiches being toasted. "We ran out of bacon and their order got lost. They're nearly done." "Okay," I turned and went back out to the Rhinestone ladies from Mesa. "I'm sorry," I greeted, still smiling, but it wasn't that huge easy to come by smile, I can usually muster. "Your orders are nearly ready. The girls got swamped. It's busy... you know?" "We're not staying!" Rhinestone Valentine stood up, nearly upsetting the table. The other three ladies struggled to their feet. "Waiting an hour for lunch is unforgivable!" "I'm sorry," I repeated. I wondered if she cared to know that I'd now been on my feet for the past five hours and hadn't had a moment all day to even take a sip of water or go pee, let alone sit down. No, I doubted that she'd care about that either. Still, sitting on one's fanny for a whole hour sounded pretty dreamy to me at that point!

So eventually, we got through the lunch crowd. They dwindled off and by two pm, there was only one elderly couple left in the cafe finishing up their lunch. The girls found time to sit at the staff table and share one of Pizza Girl's creations. "I like it better like this!" Waitress Girl announced happily. I looked around the nearly deserted restaurant and the elderly man caught my eye and smiled. I shook my head, "No, you shouldn't," I told her. "It doesn't pay the bills!"

Later on Saturday afternoon, I found Bert, resting his aching back and asked him what he thought of the crowds. "What if we did a really good job getting folks to visit our town, Bert? And this is only the beginning. What if they hit you like this each and every day you were open? Is this how you want to spend the rest of your days?" He grinned and shook his head. "I guess we have to be careful what we ask for, don't we?"