Peggy Sue's Daddy

En route to Vegas from LA with my wife and some friends, we stopped at a diner in a little town called Yermo, on Ghost Town Road. It was a few hours past most people’s dinner time and the restaurant was quiet. The booths were old and springy and it was kitschy as hell, but I loved it. The waitresses (this is not the kind of place to use the politically correct term, “servers”) were quick-witted, sweet as Southern tea, and a throwback to a different era. It’s an original 50’s diner which the actress Peggy Sue restored over 20 years ago and dubbed Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner. My wife was excited because they had “fried pickles” on the menu. She loves pickles and the idea of them being battered and fried was almost too much for her pregnant mind to handle. Now that she’s tasted them, she looks for them everywhere we go.

Pop is Peggy’s Sue’s dad and he lives in a room behind the restaurant. The waitresses aren’t blood relatives but take care of him as if he were family. His details for the past are impeccable according to the women, but new memories don’t stick in his head. The waitresses laughed a little as Pop told me a story about his daughter, Peggy Sue. At first I thought they were laughing because it was cute how much he admired her. But I soon realized it was a different kind of a laugh. For the duration of our meal, Pop would interrupt us to ask the same question he had asked us a couple of minutes earlier. Then he would tell us about his daughter – the exact same story he had just repeated to us three times in a row. There’s something surreal about hearing someone repeat the same pieces of information over and over as if it were the first time they were saying it. You start to laugh but realize that the man speaking to you has no idea that he’s doing it. He believes he’s telling you a new story and the most respectful thing you can do is smile and pretend it’s the first time you’re hearing it. I notice I do this a lot with Abe, whose memory has also been failing him lately.

Pop comes in to the restaurant every single day at the exact same time. He sits down, has his pie and a coke brought to him, and tells the waitresses stories they have heard so many times it’s hard to believe they haven’t lost their own minds. But they are patient, caring, and like actors in a long-running play they find fresh ways to ask questions and listen in order to keep the show alive.