The End of Jenn

I hate to tell you this but Jenn didn't make it.  We didn't see it coming or maybe we did.  She had some sort of Cancer that wasn't supposed to kill her, but it did.  We wonder if they shouldn't have tried to bring her back one time, but the doctors said that would have ended up hurting even worse and they didn't think they could get her back with her mind.  They must feel bad losing a patient and it must eat some of up.  I've heard a lot of doctors do themselves in.  But I better not say such things or should I.  I usually just tell everybody whatever I'm thinking even if I'm not always.

Her husband or best pal or whatever he is just keeps going out back and bawling in the alley. He thinks we don't notice and because we really like him most days we don't say anything and pretend not to notice.  If you'd ask me, which you didn't, he watched too many John Wayne movies.She got him to go to Love Story years ago.  Well, he walked out.  He didn't think she noticed but when she got to him a tear was running down his cheek and he was saying they shouldn't make such junk.  Most of us know guys are really like that but they all think they are supposed to be tough or we won't love 'em.  Well we could all do with some protection if there was a fight, but a woman with a skillet can settle things.  A little hot grease or coffee can settle things. We've got a sawed off bat we've never used under the counter. Coffee usually works pretty good.

Now Jenn was pretty good at least most of the time.  She'd hand out treats to the kids on Halloween she couldn't afford. If you needed help or a shoulder to cry on she was good.  But somehow I can't see her in a white dress with wings listening to non stop harp music.  No gum up there they say. At least the angels and saints won't have to scrape the bottoms of the tables. No, if they need somebody to serve coffee and wait on table; there must be a lot of them, Jenn would be just the person, soul, or whatever,  She never did like white uniforms and aprons though.

I don't know about writing any more stuff.  Even Garrison Keillor claims he's quitting. It just isn't the same, but I'd like the cafe and Jenn and us all to go on forever.

Most of the corn is out with the beans. A lot of it gets made into ethanol or soy diesel.  Only squirrels eat that kind of corn.  It doesn't take food from people. Some of the guys are out ripping yet, so they aren't ready just to come around, read the paper, drink coffee, and shoot dice.  The ones with hog setups are on their own schedule.  We'd rather they had a bath first, but then we don't usually have to tell them.  They claim it's the smell of money. Still some of the guys do come in especially if they broke down.  Sometimes we have a school night with one of the games, but they're mostly fund raisers.  Bake sales and burger nights don't pay enough. The band kept going for years on candy bars.Some of the towns kept the school open with the muni liquor store.  But, sad to say the business is bad even in them.  Some of the liquor stores went broke.  Hard to believe, huh?

We've got Halloween black and yellow crepe paper up.  The paper old Halloween jack o lanterns are out.  It's getting cold and spooky.  The Jay Cees or really maybe a Jay Cee or two are turning the Legion basement into a haunted house.  Somebody put the haunted house recording in the Coop answering machine.  Talk about surprise.

Jenn isn't a bit good!  But life goes on somehow, even though it isn't the same around here. We're afraid she might not come back.  But, she wants us to keep going.  She says keep the coffee on and the grill hot.

Edna

Harvest Time; Working Like Crazy

Well, the guys are really working.  The grain carts pull up along side the combines and they dump on the run.  When the carts are full it's time to fill the trucks. Then the semis are off to the elevators.  Some of the elevator guys start losing their sense of humor. You shouldn't hear what the farmers say if something breaks down, but we've heard it all before. They ought to find time to come down to the cafe. Right behind the combines somebody is ready with a big four wheeler to start digging.

This doesn't even stop at night.  When it gets dark the lights go on the combines, trucks and tractors. You can hear it all running in the night. Then, usually, when the other machinery quiets down you can hear dryers running before morning.  There aren't many drying this fall though because it has been pretty dry.

The guys don't spend much time in here reading the want ads or shooting dice for lunch.  Everybody just has time to grab a sandwich or something and coffee and then they're off.  We've been filling up a lot of thermoses.  Some of the guys like those little pies or candy bars and other stuff they can take along.

The heck of it is we're still short handed.

Edna

We're trying to keep Jenn up on what's happening here at the Cafe. Sometimes she good and sometimes she's not but she likes to hear.

They guys have mostly changed the headers on the combines and the picking heads are on.  It's real dry so everybody has to be careful about fires.  One year the paper had a picture of a combine charging out of a burning field like a scared rabbit.

When the guys can pick they aren't in here much unless its for a quick lunch or if they're waiting for combine parts or somebody to finish fixing them.  Corn isn't quite so bad for dirt, but the guys can really get grease all over them.

The old guys who are retired or as retired as a farmer ever really get sometimes talk about when people had horses and picked by hand.  There are almost none of those who actually did it now, but their boys come in sometimes and talk. Boys all right!  Most of them are in their 60;s.or so. There are still some guys who can get up a conversation in some other language.  It can turn into a regular United Nations or maybe disunited nations with some talking in Norwegian, some Swedes, some Danes, some Germans.  Then there are those who can get up a word or two.

Well, Jenn is better and worse at the same time.  She's still too tippy to manage a tray, but the physical therapy guys have her walking some times. They keep trying to manage the medicine and it keeps changing.  Sometimes everything seems to hurt too much. She says she sure would like our menu instead of theirs.

Otherwise the guys at the cafe are coming in covered in bean dust wanting something to eat that doesn't taste like the inside of a combine.  Some of them have been broken down and it all tastes like the inside of a combine. It's all going fast here and some places they're going right to the corn fields. So far the weather has been holding but it looks like rain.  The big combines and trucks just keep rolling to the elevator.  Outside it's piling up on the ground when the elevators run out of space. All the noise and lights at night are driving the deer out onto the roads and that's not safe for deer or people.  The guys would like trophies but not on the hood of the truck by accident.

All the appointments Jenn has are really confusing.  They seem to put them on top of one another or not come when she thinks they are coming.  She was better today.  Wonder of wonders another country heard from!  They discovered that she had roaring sinus problems.  Now of all things.  Everybody knows she had them especially in the fall when the combines are running.  She was always having trouble and could get pneumonia if she wasn't careful.  Well it seems they are on top of it finally.  But, she's so banged up it's hard to tell when she'll be back chewing gum and writing orders.  Nobody really orders scrambled eggs as "Adam and Eve on a raft!  Wreck em!  When he didn't get well done steak some guy did have a smart remark.  He claimed he had seen steers burnt worse than that who lived.

Things just aren't right here without Jenn.  But we are keeping the range going and the orders coming up.

Edma

Well, Jenn is all banged up.  She wants to know the number of the truck.  Being funny in the midst of it all is just like her.  She also has claimed that you ought to see the other guy.  It is bad when you wake up face down on the sidewalk like they say. 

She seems to have something that isn't very good and might have to have some other treatments or something.  I don't know about all that medical stuff.  It all seems to make her sick to her stomach and she doesn't feel much like eating. She likes to hear but can't seem to read much of anything after the accident.  She just would like to come home but that's uncertain right now.

But, anyway, she wants to know what everybody is doing and that's good.  It seem lonesome and empty even it's only one person gone.  The guys are still banging the dice cups on the table when they play farm.  Somebody yells a horse on you.  On the other hand they seem quieter than usual and a little worried, because she's not there threatening to pour coffee on somebody who gets ornery. She doesn't like guys who can't keep their hands to themselves.  Most of them learned the first time.

Edna