Min’s Cafe-Part 4

My Take

DiVoran Lites

At one time, Colorado had many Tuberculosis patients. The Department of Health required the sick people to go to the pure mountain air for its high, dry effect on healing lungs. When David and I washed the dishes (by hand), we were required to put a pink powder into the rinse water to sterilize the dinnerware.  

The cool sweet water that came down from the mountains and into our faucets was the purest in the world. We also had it hot and cold. We pulled each dish out of the hot, pink rinse the government insisted on for restaurants and put them into the drainer to air dry. We pretended we were building a fairy castle as we piled the dishes in a drainer. When the stack got so high that the dishes fell to the floor, there was nothing else to do but pick them up and set them on the stainless steel counter because we couldn’t reach the cupboards. 

We had a restaurant-sized grill for hamburgers, sausage, pancakes, bacon, and eggs. I was pleased and proud when Dad let me cook a hamburger for him to serve to a customer. Min had a reputation, too, for the best pancakes in town. Each day she put a fresh bowl of batter in the big refrigerator, so we would be ready to serve pancakes night and day.

Beef dishes were plentiful, but I was already looking for a way to avoid eating meat. Dad hunted, fished, and then hung the carcasses  in the big shed to season. The last straw for me on eating meat was when I saw the movie “Bambi,” and Bambi’s mother died. 

The roast beef was the special every day, and our parents wanted us to eat what they thought was a wonderful meal. A row of hand-made wooden booths ran along the east wall where we were. We ate our meals in the center booth. We were always happy when someone put a dime in the jute box, and we could have a dinnertime concert.  

A painting of Custer’s Last Stand with horses going down dead and people being scalped hung above the middle booth. For some reason, we chose to make it our booth. Maybe it was because of the painting; paintings were in our lives, but who needed paintings when they had such a wonderful view of God’s mountains.  After I ate my mashed potatoes and gravy, I wrapped my roast beef in a paper napkin and dropped it into the hole the builder had left at the top of the booth. 

We had a small pantry off the kitchen where many things happened. That’s where Brownie had to stay because it was against the law for dogs to be in restaurants. Sometimes Mother tried to get the knots out of my hair there.

I recall spending a whole fourth-grade class sitting at my desk tugging at my hair with a comb while the other children listened to the teacher. She was a woman with no children of her own and one of the sweetest, kindest teachers I ever had. As an aside, an old building had been designated our new school in Silvercliff. Each class now had its room. It was the beginning of gathering all the children in the valley attending the one-room schoolhouses. They called it consolidation. Our sweet teacher let me finish unsnarling my hair, and I was finished by recess. 

Mother had always tried to rake out the tangles when she had time before I left for school. One day, however, she decided to cut it short. She got half of it cut with me wiggling and trying to get away, and finally, I broke away and ran the two blocks home with Brownie running along. When I got there, I looked in the mirror and knew I had to go back and let her cut the other half.

The library was directly across the street from the restaurant at the back of the town hall. I loved to read Judy Bolton mysteries and fairy tales. The librarian had assured me it was all right for a young lady to like fairy tales still. She liked them too. Once I got my book, I went back across the street to Min’s, sat in the bar’s back booth, and ate potato chips to my heart’s content.  

 To Be Continued

DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn.  She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”

Tags: Growing up in Colorado