The First Wednesday of the Month

Lunches with my father and brother

Photo by Road Ahead on Unsplash

For about the last year and a half I have joined my father and brother the first Wednesday of each month for lunch. My father and brother started this tradition on their own several years ago.

I don’t know why I wasn’t included from the get-go. Maybe I was too busy raising my children, being married, running the house. I don’t know. But I don’t take it personally. When they invited me to join them, I was glad to do so.

We meet at a local seafood restaurant on the river that’s been around for about eighty years. Again, I don’t know why my father and brother chose this restaurant. It is not very good.

Watery, tepid clam chowder. Soggy, unseasoned green beans. Fried shrimp, fried clams, fried cod, fried oysters, French fries, all fried, all the same. The decor? Wooden tables, wooden chairs, and wooden beams with a few buoys and life preservers snagged into the webbing of some fishing nets hung from the ceiling. And the whole place could use a bath and a good scrub.

Maybe my father and brother chose it because it’s convenient. It’s close to where they live. Since it’s not really that far from where I live, I did not agitate for another venue when I came on board, although I did ask if we could meet after noon instead of before in order to accommodate another commitment I have Wednesday morning. My father and brother were meeting at 11:30 in order to beat the lunch rush. But meeting at 12:15 in the middle of the week at a place that could easily seat two hundred? Not a problem.

Given the mediocrity of the food, you might be wondering why I did not campaign to meet at another place, especially after I had settled in nicely as a regular and could have built on the pull I acquired after moving our gathering to another time. Well, I thought about it, especially after about six months, when, after each meal, I wondered if the food could possibly get any worse, and it did.

But then I thought about our hardworking regular server Kayla. She is attentive. She hustles. She has enough poise and self-confidence to pull off wearing a t-shirt that says, I See You Looking at My Hushpuppies. I could never get away with that.

Kayla is familiar and patient with our routine. Along with menus and utensils, she always seats us with three glasses of water, no ice, no straws, slice of lemon for me. She’s also always making sure we get the most for our money. “Tell you what,” she said this month after my dad placed his order, “I’m gonna do a Workboat for you and count her order as your sides.” She tapped her notepad with the tip of her pen and looked over at my father. “Fine, fine,” my dad said.

We are in good hands with Kayla. Why forfeit such dependable competence and consideration by going somewhere else? It’s not worth it.

It’s also hard to beat this restaurant’s class-A location on the banks of the river. The view is great, scenic and peaceful, even if the windows are a little fogged. It’s not uncommon to see watercraft such as sailboats and motorboats, or even the occasional rower sweeping along in a scull (swoosh! . . . . swoosh!), as well as barges heaped with coal and snub-nosed tugs making their way to or from the locks near downtown.

Another bonus of being on the river—my father’s shout-outs to local wildlife. “Oh, look! Two ducks!” he said at lunch this month, arresting a discussion we were having about a book we were all reading. The ducks were cruising in for a chilly splash-down by the docks.

Earlier we had talked about my father’s recent hunting trip. I can’t say that I paid much attention to the details. There were a lot of them. That’s my father: Eagle Scout, engineer, model train aficionado, typesetter, beekeeper, sportsman, churchman, businessman, gentleman, never bored and ever curious. That all adds up to a lot of details.

It also generates other calculations that would never occur to me. “One way to look at a trip like this,” my father told my brother and me, “is the cost per bird. Another way is hours traveled per bird.” The way I would look at such a trip is, “What’s my share here?” and, “Are we there yet?”

With our easy and rewarding rapport with Kayla and the restaurant’s riverine location, I don’t see my father and brother and me pulling up anchor any time soon and shoving off for another spot. Being comfortable here gives us the chance to focus on spending time together and talking about, as my father would say, “the usual baloney” — other family, social activities, current events, work, the word games we like to play.

Our fare may also include my father offering an exegesis on quadratic equations or the difference between a fire and an explosion. I get lost on the turn with the former but can hang in there for the latter. I can also get hung up on studying him and trying to tease out the source of some of his mannerisms and features—wasn’t that the way his sister laughed? And his mother? Those azure blue eyes? His father and mother, both.

Now and then my father's hearing loss poses some challenges. A lifetime of hunting, a few years the national guard doing artillery, regular use of outboard motors and power tools such as chainsaws and an almighty leaf vacuum called a Billy Goat—that about accounts for the hearing loss. And there's no accounting for when it's created a disconnect.

We might be cruising along in some conversation and my father will ask a question that suggests he's missed whole swaths of the exchange. Oh! Oh! Oh! he will say when I correct or redirect. Oh, well. Better late than never to join in. But sometimes I let things go. I also admit that a few times I have shouted at him. Except, having only one good ear, he probably can’t tell that I am shouting. So let’s say that doesn’t count.

When Kayla comes by with our check, one of us will say, “My turn,” or, “I got it this month.” In truth, I think we often forget whose turn it is. But I am certain that the check is correct, and that we will be back next month, glad to talk about “the usual baloney,” and how far my father had to drive to bag two quail.

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