It's fun when you go home again and you find that some things have just not changed. After Thursday's graduation ceremony we went down to The Crab Cooker on Newport Peninsula for lunch. Their sign says they have been in business there fifty-eight years, and if you had asked me my answer would have been, "Forever". But when I do the math I certainly was a young teenager when I made my first visit to The Crab Cooker. And now two more generations from my family have joined the line as customers.
I can't say much has changed inside or out; the tables and chairs seem pretty much the same as does the paint on the outside of the building. The fresh fish displayed on a bed of crushed ice is still there to greet you as you enter, the food is good, served minimalistic and efficiently. I know that some of the servers must be new because they are just not old enough to even have their five year pin let alone one showing fifty years of good service and a winking whale's eye.
It was a good day, starting with the graduation ceremony held in the Robert B. Moore Theatre on the Orange Coast College campus. Though I only knew one of the graduates, my grandson, I listened with pride as the graduates spoke of their school and the relationship with its staff. How the time spent at the school had changed their lives is such a dramatic way and how they now feel confident that their dreams can become a reality.
You know life is good, progress is being made and by golly I think the future is bright. I think their class motto pretty much sums it all up:
"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one as reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."
― Booker T. Washington
My mom is right. The place hasn't changed at all - the Crab Legs are the best!
ReplyDelete