David K. Leff, Essayist, Poet, Lecturer

Celebrity Dining

Does the presence of celebrities in a restaurant make the food taste better?  Do the famous eat where the grub is good?  A recent visit to the Whately Diner (sometimes called the Fillin’ Station), at a truck stop just off I-91 in the Massachusetts town of the same name, raised these unexpected culinary questions as I forked a plate full with eggs, home fries and corned beef hash. Such thoughts would not normally occur to me while enjoying some of my favorite comfort food, but the menu listed several of the big names that had stopped in for a meal, including Michael Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, B.B. King, Christopher Reeve, Vanilla Ice, Jason Robard, and the Beastie Boys.  A scene from the 1999 film “In Dreams,” with Annette Benning and Robert Downey, Jr., was filmed on the premises.  Looking around as nonchalantly as possible, coffee mug in hand, I confirmed that none of these personages, alive or dead, were present.

Goodwill (poem)

Row upon row, rack after rack of human molt,
bright castoff plumage of other lives await
resurrection.  A riot of color and texture: paisleys,
black watch tartans, leopard prints, and stripes,
each slightly worn to a body’s shape.  French blue,
yellow, mauve, chartreuse, lavender and red,
they were too baggy, a bit tight, out-of-fashion,
not-to-taste, or a gift of the dead.

Hangers screaking along metal rods signal
conversation with unheard voices.  The Musketeer
shirt with ruffles, a green Rambo tee, and pants
embroidered with butterflies whisper secrets.
Not just size or style, but wear spots from a wallet
or keys and faint odors of tobacco,
perfume, moth balls or cooking brisket seduce
with sudden intimacy.

A New York Yankee cap with a stained sweatband,
straw panamas, felt fedoras, and a feathered
pillbox long for new heads.  Orderly ranks
of shoes look forlorn without feet.  Pumps,
high-top sneakers, Vibram-soled work boots,
sandals, chukkas, and wingtips speak
with curled toes and eroded heels.  Scarves, belts,
and handbags wait impatiently to live again.

Gray, blue, and brown suits hang like shed snake
skins: pin stripe, glen plaid, houndstooth and Harris
tweed.  Like a ghost among the coats is a charcoal
flannel—forty short, wide peaked lapels and cuffs—
same as my dead father’s donated a year
and three thousand miles distant.  Dare I take
it home, and keep a stranger from slipping into
the empty shell of my father’s life?

 

An Air Show that's for the Birds

The best aerial acrobats you’ll ever see might be performing just above your rooftop every evening.   Quick and graceful in the air, finding refuge and nest sites in masonry flues, there is probably no more  aptly named creature than the chimney swift.   Almost constantly in flight, diving and swooping for insects during the day, consider yourself lucky if you share your home with these birds whose shape has earned them the nickname “flying cigar.”