The Waitress

During spring break 1963, I was with my parents at a hotel in Miami Beach, Florida.  I was seventeen years old and anxious to start my new life by going away to college a few months later.

Which college?  I had been accepted at six universities as an engineering student:  Penn, Michigan, Cornell, Brandeis, Georgia Tech and Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve).

One morning at the hotel, I woke early (before my parents) and decided to have breakfast alone at its coffee shop.  

As I entered, I remember there being few customers.  Near the front was a table populated by a bunch of teenage girls.  I decided to eat at the counter with my back to the girls.  I was my waitress's only customer.

I avoided turning around.  I looked straight ahead, gave my order to the waitress and ate the food when she brought it to me.  I tried to ignore the girls behind me as I assumed they were ignoring me.

For no particular reason, the waitress decided to do me a favor.  From her vantage point, she could both see and hear the teenage girls behind me.

Before I left the coffee shop, the waitress told me the teenage girls had been looking at and almost exclusively talking about me.  Suffering at the time from a lack of social self-esteem, I didn't believe her.  Why should I?  She was a stranger.  

In retrospect (from more than sixty years later), I should have believed the waitress and taken advantage of the very useful information she provided.  Maybe I should have had the courage to join the teenage girls at their table.  I had much to gain...perhaps a boost in my social self-esteem.