I originally wrote  this in September of 2008.  It needs to be published again.  From time to time I still think about the dinner I had at the Stage Coach.  It was good!

A tale of two restaurants.

While working in Jim Thorpe, PA a bunch of the folk I was working with told me to have dinner at Platz’s restaurant. Not only was it about 1200 yards down the road from my hotel but everyone raved about how good the food was. It wasn’t!
I was seated and my waitress, Melody, felt the need to stand about 16 inches too close to me while she was at my table. I was seated she was standing. Get the picture?

I wisely asked how much a Stoli on the rocks was. When she returned she informed me it would set me back $7.50. I told her I would have a glass of water.

Ok, so I ordered a SMALL appetizer of potato skins, a 14oz. BBQ’d Angus steak and a salad. I received 4 entire potatoes halved, burned and smothered in Cheez Whiz and Bacon-Bits. I’m a big guy but I do not remember telling her I was carbo-stuffing for some competition the next day. I also got a horribly fore-shortened plate of greens completely drowned in a cream-based-disgusto-sauce she referred to as Italian dressing. Then after about 30 minutes my so-called rare steak arrived at my table. Again Melody needed to stand there 3.6 millimeters from my face to make sure all was well. Boy, was I tempted to simply turn my head and bite one of them. My steak was of a good size but I would have cooked it for about another half hour to bring it rare!

I was hungry.

While either waiting for my food or maybe it was while eating I glanced around the dining room and realized that everyone in there was at least 300lbs. I felt downright svelte! I mean every single person in that room was well and on their way to morbid obesity. I’m pretty sure I shuddered.

I ate two of the eight burnt spud halves, a few pieces of spinach I saved from the disgusto sauce and my extremely rare steak, asked for my check and bolted as fast as I could get out of there.

On the other hand.

Tonight, just outside of Hazleton, PA, I check into this seriously flash hotel and ask the young girl at the front desk to recommend a restaurant. She tells me to go to The Stage Coach just up the road. Then she tells me her Uncle owns it. Well, shite! After last night all I wanted to do was order a pizza. About 6ish I decide to go sit alone in yet another shitty restaurant and have yet another shitty meal. It started just as I expected. The little blond bobble-head seats me and I hand her the ash tray and said to her, “You shouldn’t put ashtrays in the no- smoking section!”. She said something along the line of, “Hehehehe, I didn’t ask you where you wanted to be seated, hehehe.”. No, no you didn’t!, I responded. After reseating me my early 20-something waiter, Mike, comes over and immediately starts into the specials. I didn’t hear a word he said. I turned to him and asked for a Stoli on the rocks. While he was gone I was given a glass of water by the bimbo-blonde, no ice. At least Mike didn’t feel the need to stand too close to me. Mike returned with a glass of Russian vodka on the rocks just the size I was looking for! Things are staring to look up.

So, I told him I didn’t hear a word he said about the specials and he repeated them. Thank you, no. I’ll have the 14oz Filet Mignon with a salad and a baked potato.

The, ‘If I giggle no one will yell at me’, bobble-head blonde showed up once more and preceded to put a bit of pesto on a small plate and pour some olive oil over it. Then she put the basket of bread on the table. Cripes(!) I could have just eaten that for dinner.

First, the salad was a wonderful mixture of spinach and at least three different lettuces, lightly drizzled with a spiced oil and vinegar dressing. Yum! Things are really starting to look up! Then my filet emerged from whatever heavenly kitchen it came from. It was huge! The size of a 1966 VW beetle, it was. Well, it wasn’t but it was the largest filet I have ever seen and it was cooked just right and lightly seasoned with sea salt and some very light pepper I couldn’t figure out quite what it was. To steal a term from Grandad, JAYZUS it was good! Even the lowly baked spud was done to perfection and served with clarified butter.

After dinner my waiter, Mike, came to my table with another small jug, er’ I mean glass of Stoli on the rocks and all he said was, “This one’s on the house.”. Then he walked away.

It was an epicurean near-heaven.

So there ya’ have it. The next time you’re convinced that dinner is going to suck again just remember you may be walking into another Stage Coach restaurant.

Yum!

Barbeque sauce:
Catsup
Onion, minced
Mustard (and not that yellow stuff)
Wishyoucouldsayit sauce
Brown sugar
Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning
Bring to a boil in a two quart saucepan and balance everything until it tastes right

would be nice

he’s been there
He’s standing on a corner
talking to her
Bachet, Trane, hell, even Bird is gone
Paint the statue in KISS face
Uriah Heep, Black Oak Arkansas no body drives a Studabaker anymore

Open the trunk  Have a beer  let the party carry on
we sang about what’s so funny….
we didn’t really mean it
Johnny R was right
despite the hype

She was tall
actually shorter than she looked
she loved his
scared of moving too fast
scared of……SHIT!!!
they loved good together
They did the best they could while they were stuck in this place

would be nice

Ice, Ice..music sucks
Ween ….is keen
devolution
we don’t grow we get older

I’m still not sleepy.

They should have taken effect by now.

I’m sitting and daydreaming            about

a life that lives only in my mind

It’s OK!

They call me an idealist

I have an ideal world in my hand.

It’s a pretty cool place were there are

no politicians, cops or badguys

Not in that hippy, flower power kinda way

More like Wookstock meets Ozzie and Harriet
and they all get along… well

I was speaking in front of a crowd at a great large theater.

I was trying to get them to understand

I’m not one for everyday hugs.
Save them for someone you love and Puh-Leez don’t give me that I love everybody, new-age crap.
Save them for when you mean it.
Save yourself from the rubber room existance we are building for our children.

Take then hunting or fishing or backpacking   for Gods sake.

but wait!  One must ask the Kings permission.
I didn’t vote for any King!
The lands and wood that you would camp upon are owned by the state!  You have to pay money to camp there.

The waterways are controlled by the state.  You must pay money to use them.

The Stag in wood is property of the state and you have to pay money to shoot him.  no matter how hungery you are.

HA!!  Not in my little idealistic world they’re not

I shall no longer pay my tribute to the King!
Let it be know through out the land that I bow to no man!

Everyone else in my world feels the same way.

We get on quite well.

We don’t lock our doors when leaving and one can’t lose their car keys when they’re always in the ignition.

At one point I looked out upon the sea of faces and wondered if I was getting through.

The applause said I was, but was I?

I think it was the after-party where everyone kept pushing drinks and drugs at me almost as an offering to some psychicly benevolent seer.

I just see whats in front of my eyes, folks.

Now I’m yawning.  A good sign.  Stay tuned for vol.2

His first impression was that there were alot more people there than he expected.  Then he turned the corner and about dropped his jaw when he saw about five guys wearing colors!!  Bikers!?!  One percenters?  Oh, this is going to be interesting he thought to himself.  The room was set up with three rows of seats facing each other with a long table in the middle of the room.  He took his seat in a middle row and tried to be inconspicious.  More and more people filed in.  The room was starting to fill up.  About five minutes before the meeting started all the seat were taken and they were pulling folding chairs from a closet.   It had been a warm autumn but still the heat was on and it was already a little to warm in there.  Eight PM finally arrived and the meeting was started by the guy running the show.  People were still coming in.  The place was packed.

He was surprised to look around and see people of all stripes there.  The bikers mentioned before as well as more than expected young people.  Of course there were the expected 50-something guys and more women than he though would be there.  the mix of people really surprised him from bikers to men in suits and way young kids in their early 20′s.
They started the meeting by reviewing what the meeting is all about.  They have a set and standard way of doing this and they went through it with military precision.  There came a time when they asked if anyone was new to this meeting.  He quite nervously spoke up and was greeted with a warm welcome.  They gave him a round of applause.

The body of the meeting went both as he expected and not so too.  He found it very interesting listening to the speakers and trying to relate them to his own life.  As the meeting wrapped up as he thought it would he was very surprised at the number of people who came up to him to just just say hello and talk.  Even the bikers were nice and welcoming.  Even while standing outside having a smoke afterwards people came up to him and introduced themselves.

They all offered the same advice.
Keep coming back.

And my favorite…