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Authors: Debra Ginsberg
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Petit Morsel is still in opera tion. Since it’s been almost twenty years since I worked there, I am very curious about what the menu looks like now and how the staff functions. Is there still a community tip jar, I wonder, or do the servers get their due? When I decide to take a tour of my old stomping grounds, Petit Morsel will certainly be on the list. I plan to go prepared, ready to press a big fat tip into my wait ress’s hand.
[ ]
three
the back of the hous e
In May of 1982, I found myself disembarking from a Grey hound bus in the northwest corner of Wyoming. My clothes pro vided pitifully inadequate insulation against the blast of cold air that assaulted me. I looked at the place that was to be my home for the next three months. It was singularly uninviting. There was a foot of fresh snow on the ground. My very first thought was that I had made a terrible mistake. “What am I doing here?” I asked myself softly. Not surprisingly, there was nobody there to answer.
Several months earlier, I’d filled out an application for summer employment at Yellowstone National Park. Although this was the first I’d heard of it, many of the national parks advertised for employees through colleges and universities around the country. The draw was that in addition to getting paid to work in one of the most beautiful places in the country, room and board was thrown in and there was ample opportunity to explore the surroundings. In truth, the only reason I’d applied at all was because Ray, my boyfriend at the time, thought it would be a great idea for the two of us to work side by side in the great outdoors away from the pressures and rigors of school. A year ahead of me, he was getting ready to write his senior thesis and graduate in the spring of 1983. It was a last hurrah for him, a chance to revel in youth before entering the “real” world. Besides all of this, he considered himself something of an outdoorsman, an expert when it came to backpacking, rock climbing, or any activity that required some sort of convergence with nature. I couldn’t have been more opposite in my thinking, but I wanted to get away as much as he did and, at the time, I wanted to be with him as well.
Ray prepped me for disappointment as we filled out our applications together. It was entirely possible, he claimed, that he would be accepted and I would be rejected. He had much bet ter experience, he said, and the national parks probably had quo tas on how many students they could hire from individual schools. There were spots on the application that allowed us to state our preferences as to where we would work. Ray listed the ranger station as his first pick. As I filled in the spot marked “Waitress, Dining Room,” I realized he was probably right. I wouldn’t get hired and he’d be off on a big adventure for the summer. I began to plan an alternative course of action.
By the time we heard back from Yellowstone, the spring term was almost over. Ray and I had gone through the sort of rapid relationship change inherent in youthful romances. In fact, we were in the process of an ugly, drawn-out breakup. His letter arrived first, a thin missive thanking him for applying but stating that they were unable to hire him. His keen disappointment deepened a few days later when I received a thick packet from Yellowstone welcoming me to the summer team and listing my assignment. “Kitchen Prep,” it said.
“Well, maybe I won’t go,” I told Ray. “I don’t really want to work in a kitchen.”
“You have to go,” he said bitterly. “Why would you pass up such a great opportunity? And it’s not like you want to be with me .”
He wasn’t entirely incorrect. Truth be told, part of the reason (well, actually most of the reason) that Ray and I were breaking up was because I had fallen hard for one of his best friends ear lier in the year. In turn, the friend had rejected me in a most painful fashion while still allowing for just
[ ]
three
the back of the hous e
In May of 1982, I found myself disembarking from a Grey hound bus in the northwest corner of Wyoming. My clothes pro vided pitifully inadequate insulation against the blast of cold air that assaulted me. I looked at the place that was to be my home for the next three months. It was singularly uninviting. There was a foot of fresh snow on the ground. My very first thought was that I had made a terrible mistake. “What am I doing here?” I asked myself softly. Not surprisingly, there was nobody there to answer.
Several months earlier, I’d filled out an application for summer employment at Yellowstone National Park. Although this was the first I’d heard of it, many of the national parks advertised for employees through colleges and universities around the country. The draw was that in addition to getting paid to work in one of the most beautiful places in the country, room and board was thrown in and there was ample opportunity to explore the surroundings. In truth, the only reason I’d applied at all was because Ray, my boyfriend at the time, thought it would be a great idea for the two of us to work side by side in the great outdoors away from the pressures and rigors of school. A year ahead of me, he was getting ready to write his senior thesis and graduate in the spring of 1983. It was a last hurrah for him, a chance to revel in youth before entering the “real” world. Besides all of this, he considered himself something of an outdoorsman, an expert when it came to backpacking, rock climbing, or any activity that required some sort of convergence with nature. I couldn’t have been more opposite in my thinking, but I wanted to get away as much as he did and, at the time, I wanted to be with him as well.
Ray prepped me for disappointment as we filled out our applications together. It was entirely possible, he claimed, that he would be accepted and I would be rejected. He had much bet ter experience, he said, and the national parks probably had quo tas on how many students they could hire from individual schools. There were spots on the application that allowed us to state our preferences as to where we would work. Ray listed the ranger station as his first pick. As I filled in the spot marked “Waitress, Dining Room,” I realized he was probably right. I wouldn’t get hired and he’d be off on a big adventure for the summer. I began to plan an alternative course of action.
By the time we heard back from Yellowstone, the spring term was almost over. Ray and I had gone through the sort of rapid relationship change inherent in youthful romances. In fact, we were in the process of an ugly, drawn-out breakup. His letter arrived first, a thin missive thanking him for applying but stating that they were unable to hire him. His keen disappointment deepened a few days later when I received a thick packet from Yellowstone welcoming me to the summer team and listing my assignment. “Kitchen Prep,” it said.
“Well, maybe I won’t go,” I told Ray. “I don’t really want to work in a kitchen.”
“You have to go,” he said bitterly. “Why would you pass up such a great opportunity? And it’s not like you want to be with me .”
He wasn’t entirely incorrect. Truth be told, part of the reason (well, actually most of the reason) that Ray and I were breaking up was because I had fallen hard for one of his best friends ear lier in the year. In turn, the friend had rejected me in a most painful fashion while still allowing for just
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