Oasis

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On a cold day like this as I circle the Terre Haute House looking for just the right view of the demolition, wind penetrating my light clothing, I'm reminded of cold weather walks to the Terre Haute House Coffee Shop from ISU for a snack or a coffee. If you are dressed for a 70 or 50 or 30 degree day, even a three block walk at 50, 30 or 10 is something you want to shorten, yet we never ran because we knew better than to break a sweat.

I was off curriculum in the mid 60s learning to program the IBM 1620 that was in the basement of the administration building. It was a room full of computer with a 6 figure price that could not keep up with a calculator you could buy today at Dollar General but we thought it was great and would work at learning its nuances late into the night. A program laboriously encoded on thick paper punch cards was fed into the 1620 for compilation into machine code before we could test our logic then we studied or waited. Sometimes the wait was more than an hour and a trip to the Terre Haute House Coffee Shop would seem to be in order.

There was much to talk about, we were both looking into a computer filled future our fathers could not imagine but for the moment, we were grimly looking ahead to the Terre Haute House sign on the north side of the building and silently imagining the relief from biting cold we would attain within.



 
 
When we passed the lanterns and the hall and entered the north side lobby door, we avoided a half block outdoor walk to the Coffee Shop entrance by walking through the lobby. The hotel folks stayed at their stations. We didn't bother them nor they us. Cheery lights warmed the wainscoting and oil portraits of champion standard bred horses graced those walls. Sometimes I was moved to study the furnishings and the ornaments here but I was suddenly on a mission.

I broke the silence: "Order me something, I gotta go pee."

"Whaddayawant?"

"Anything."

My friend smiled and entered the Coffee Shop.

 
 I walked down the stairs past the barber shop and into the tiled mens room and faced the blank wall above the urinal. Was that a smirk or a smile my friend had given me as we walked through the lobby? What did I just say? Did I really tell him to order me anything? I had just opened myself to a good practical joke by a known practical joker with a twisted sense of humor.

I washed and dried my hands and prepared myself to be not surprised and climbed the stairs to slide into a booth opposite my friend and his steaming cup of coffee. I waited for him to speak but he didn't.



On the smooth table was a short glass of water for each of us with those cylindrical shaped ice cubes available only at the Terre Haute House. The water was drawn from their own well somewhere on the property and it was worth a trip just for the cool clear ice water you got there. I didn't miss it until it was gone.

The functional Coffee Shop and its night crew were a contrast to the elegance of the lobby. The waitresses seemed old but efficient. One skinny one had a self administrated tattooed JR with the J reversed fading on her forearm but she was pleasant enough with her curled gray hair and, I think, a utility apron of some kind and a uniform of indeterminate pastel shade. She placed before me, a large saucer with a single banana upon it.

I straightened and looked into her face. "What's this!?"

She checked her order book. "Sir, it's a banana," she stated confidently.

"There must be some mistake, I wanted that fried," said I with an equally confident tone. I had never seen nor tasted fried furit - just heard of it somewhere.

The waitress took the plate and moved toward the kitchen where an overweight cook with very black eyebrows and a prominent nose mole busied herself attending to a revolving wheel half full of green order slips behind a steel and glass partition.

I had never heard the cook speak before I heard her say, "I AIN'T FRYIN' NO GAWDDAMND BANANA!"

We hid our laughter and I ordered more traditional fare.


 
 
Friday lunch I could see the big crane alternate between the Terre Haute House and the Bement-Rae building keeping smaller scoopers and truckers at both buildings busy.

Next.... (Saturday Progress from the WTHI-TV tower cam)...