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Highlands Today

Get Me To The Church On Time

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By Norm Cukras | Highlands Today

Published: October 4, 2008

I read somewhere that being on time is back in fashion. The reason for this phenomenon, I feel, is due to a sitting president who believes in the practice, something the previous president did not. Whether or not we have our schedule keeping president to thank for that or not, I think it's great. I'm sorry, but I think it is inexcusable for people to be consistently late or late without some sort of plausible and acceptable excuse.

I had a friend who made a career out of being late. It got so that the rest of us would simply tell him that we were meeting a half hour before the actual meeting time. Nine out of 10 times he would show up along with the rest of us. The 10th time was a flip of the coin whether he would be earlier or later than the rest of us. He was a diehard, "I can't make it on time," type person. And he took it very personal when he found out what we were doing to him.

Even in the movie "My Fair Lady" Eliza Doolittle's father Alfie demanded of his friends that regardless of the circumstances, "For God's sake, get me to the church on time."

In our church up in Michigan we had a priest who would look out of the doors before starting the Processional. If there were parishioners in the parking lot, he would wait until they entered the church before starting. The obvious happened: people dawdled more and more. Services were running up to 15 minutes late. The new priest who was assigned to the parish was a schedule keeper. Even if you were entering the church when the Mass was about to begin you waited, not the rest of the congregation. Within a month no one showed up late for services any longer.

It's all a matter of discipline and a matter of respect.

Who Pays The Price

When Olive Garden first opened people remarked to me about how exciting it was to see a restaurant with so much business. It seems as if the parking lot is seldom empty during mealtime hours.

But, I asked these same people, who's paying the price? There are just so many people in the county who eat out. And now that the economy is faltering there are less. Well anyway the answer to my question is slowly emerging. While one thrives others fail like the recently closed Farmer's Market Buffet and Tropical Chicken and Bakery. The moods of the fickeled folks who dine out continually change. Chains always seem to do well, but sadly it's usually at the expense of the little guy, which tends to baffle me. I'm a "mom and pop" restaurant person, which is evident by the fact that I'm probably the only person around who has yet to eat at the new Olive Garden.

And we did make it over to the Blue Crab on Wednesday, Oct. 1, when the Pearson brothers celebrated their first breakfast-serving anniversary by rewarding patrons with a $1.99 breakfast. Eggs and potatoes and toast and meat too were served to 260 eager eaters. Wow, those chickens were kept busy.

Fortune Cookie Wisdom

It probably should come as no surprise that like chop suey, fortune cookies are most probably an American invention. Anyway whenever we finish our meals at restaurants like the China Buffet in Avon Park we were presented with the buttery cookies. A while back I opened mine only to find it message-less. I couldn't help but wonder if that was an omen of some kind. Of course the way our economy has been going I don't envision any great fortune in my future.

The next time we ate at the restaurant my fortune fears were forgotten. I got my little snippet of wisdom. It read: Person that snores loudest always fall asleep first. I wonder if there is a hidden meaning indicating what stock I should invest in, maybe in a mattress company?

By the way, the largest of the fortune cookie factories ships a reported 60 million of the dainty dessert every month. Holy predictions.

Overheard

Overheard at the checkout counter: I sometimes wonder how often people remember things that never happened.

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