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Honey
Stores, Impossibilities and Making Wellness
It’s
strange how old memories can crop up, unexpectedly and
unbidden, for no reason at all. Why I awakened in the
middle of the night thinking of Mr. Patton and his outdoor,
self-service honey dispensary remains a mystery.
He must have had a first name, but at the age of ten or so, I was in the habit
of “mistering” all male adults. Back in the latter days of the Great
Depression, folks made a living in just about any way they could, but Mr. Patton’s
retail business, based rather shakily on faith in human nature, was unusual.
Mr. Patton resided in an old two-story, four-apartment building at 11th and I
Streets. It was, even if it didn’t bear the name, Sacramento’s version
of a tenement. I think they were called “railroad dwellings” with
one long hallway running from front to back and the rooms lined up in a row,
opening into the hall.
We had a family friend, a wheelchair-bound watchmaker, living on one side, and
Mr. Patton moved into the other when it became vacant after a dry cleaner that
operated out of his front room died, probably of carbon tetrachloride poisoning.
To open his retail business, Mr. Patton set a large and heavy table in the small
front yard. In the center he placed a glass jar, secured by a metal frame to
the table and with a slot in the lid through which coins and paper money could
be slipped. While it was locked to the table, it was eminently breakable.
The money depository was surrounded by his stock in trade — various sized
jars of honey and a posted price list. And Mr. Patton himself? Once open — in
a manner of speaking — for business, he retreated to the house, where I
suppose he occupied himself filling more jars from larger containers. Oh, and
occasionally, coming out to empty his money jar.
While I know this sounds like an odd, downright foolhardy way to do business,
I don’t recall Mr. Patton’s ever complaining of being shortchanged
or having his goods purloined by passersby. It was obviously a different world
back then, a day when everybody was on the financial shorts to the point that
no one was willing to make life worse for a fellow sufferer.
Mr. Patton used to disappear for several months at a time, off, he said, to replenish
his stock from wherever his hives were located. Finally the day came when he
simply failed to reappear. Times had changed, people surmised, or he had possibly
found another means of livelihood. Then, five or six years later, I was walking
around 14th and F Streets, and there was the table with the money container and
the honey jars and Mr. Patton’s old sign.
He remembered the kid who used to hang around, and we chatted a bit, but when
I went by some weeks later, there was no trace of the honey man and his self-service “store.”
So Mr. Patton disappeared from my life — until, that is, I woke up thinking
about him in the middle of the night.
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• • •
I
know the two dirtiest words in the restaurant business
are “separate checks,” but everyone in a group
doesn’t refrain from ordering the same items. And
assessing costs equitably is a near impossibility.
Consider this scenario involving a couple of dozen or so people, some single,
some couples, choosing from among four different-priced entrees, some ordering
a beverage, some abstaining. When the bill comes, they all need to be reminded
of costs, then calculate for themselves what is owed and adding a tip.
You know who the big loser is? The server, because most folks — finding
it difficult to multiply the cost by 7.75 percent — just forget the tax,
so it diminishes the tip by that much.
Many restaurateurs will tell those who ask, “It can’t be done,” when
what they mean is, “We won’t do it.”
Oh, I know, take the total bill, add the tip, divide by the number at the table,
and it’ll pretty well even up. Men are inclined to do it that way; women
are not. And I can think of one sizeable group of women who will not patronize
a place where separate checks are declared an “impossibility.”
Even if difficult, if they are there to serve the public, it would be better — and
more profitable — to serve that public the way they want to be served.
And charged.
• • •
Sacramento’s
last recorded measurable snowfall, as best as I
can determine, was in Mid-March of 1942. I recall it, not
as an eyewitness, but because I
was disappointed at being away at college and missing
this once in a lifetime Sacramento
event.
What reminded me was a note from Carl Vining, who now lives in Roseville,
along with a newspaper picture taken outside the Clunie Clubhouse at Alhambra
and F
Streets (Carl marks the location as “across from Solander’s,” that
teen hangout being more memorable), with a large, necktie-adorned snowman
surrounded by ten then-young Sacramentans.
I have to wonder who among Betty Schroeder, Barney Wirtz, Harold Franklin, Bill
Berriesford, Johnny Glanz, Fritz Hoffman, Bernita Russell, Francis Duffy and
another Betty, last name forgotten, are still around to swap memories of that
day with Carl. • • •
We
have a German banker friend, Elmar Schmitt, who does not
always handle the English language too adroitly but who
can turn a nifty and memorable phrase from
time to time.
One such was his graphic but succinct comment in a Christmas letter: “Every
week my two brothers-in-law and I bike and make wellness.” And what could
be clearer than “make wellness?”
After
retiring from a long and respected career with The Sacramento
Bee, Stan Gilliam found that he just couldn't
stop writing. So
he brought
his "Stan's Sacramento" column
to the Spectrum, where
it has been a favorite
of readers for 16 years ... and counting.
Senior
Thoughts Senior
Beat
55-Plus Aging
Lifestyles
• • •
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