Two small stories - Roswell and Lubbock

 It starts at breakfast this morning at the Days Inn I stayed at, and it involves this young lad.

As I was drinking my coffee a young lad walked into the breakfast room with a book in one hand and he surveyed the offerings. He focuses on the automatic pancake machine and pushes the button to launch the process. Since he doesn’t detect any response he pushes the button again, and again, and again, and again, and walks away. At that point, wanting to be of assistance I say: “You need to get a plate”, to catch the pancake as it spills off the conveyor belt. He hesitates, bounces on both feet, looks around to locate the stack of paper plates, retrieves one and rushes back to, just about, catch the first pancake. Then the second pancake emerges, and a third…He then peers into the machine through the glass window and sees more pancakes moving along? He’s surprised and confused and reads the red digital display; 15.  I ask him if he had read the big sign on top of the pancake maker. It says: Press ONLY once for 3 pancakes.  Shortly he has 15 small pancakes on a plate in front of him, when his mother walks in the room. “Well, it didn’t start so I pressed the button again”. Mother, shaking her head, responded, “once!?”  I left the room at that point.

The ride from Roswell to Lubbock is across a vast plain, arid at first, with increasingly more vegetation as one goes from New Mexico to Texas where there are fields with large automated watering systems with different crops growing. There are extensive oil fields with hundreds of pumpjacks visible from the highway on either side of the state line. 

My second story is related to this,

After a quick shower to cool down from the 36 degree heat at Cotton Court Hotel in Lubbock, Texas, I decided to go out for some lunch. I had discovered on the internet that close by there was Dirk’s Signature Chicken and Bar. That it’s menu featured Gulf oysters in addition to roasted and deep fried chicken appealed to me. I ordered the oysters and a glass of Chardonnay that they didn’t then did have. When it came time to pay, my waitress came over and informed me that someone, who did not want to be identified, had already paid for my meal. To say I was surprised is an understatement. There were only about a dozen people in the place and, try as I might to do so, it was impossible to identify who among them was my benefactor. Something like this has never happened to me. I left a nice tip under the menu that was still on my table, and wished the bartender a nice day as I walked out smiling into the midday Lubbock heat.