Hey, Porter

Comedian and native Ukrainian, Yakov Smirnoff made a career out of glorifying life in America, compared to Russian: “In America you go looking for party, in my country, party looks for you!”

Whether UW or U of I, you did not have to look hard. After a week of quizzes, tests and lab reports, come Friday, brain dead co-eds were ready to shut off.

It could have been my red neck, blue collar or empty wallet, but I couldn’t bring myself to go straight from chem lab to quarter beers. My idea of happy hour was to turn the radio up louder than the industrial sterilizer at Noyes Lab. Decades earlier scientist brought polyester to seventies politicians and John Travolta in the very same building. In 1984, seven hours a week washing rat cages brought a flat-top freshman a little foldin’ money and a pepperoni pizza on Sunday night.

I wouldn’t make two steps inside the door of Townsend 2-South before my roommate, “Senator” Scott Clewis, would politely hand me a fresh towel and a bar of soap. There must have been something about the smell. By the time I had scrubbed off the animal odor, a crowd would gather in front of the 14” black and white TV in our 20x20 dorm room.

After Waylon Jennings broke into “Waymore’s Blues” at the end of another epic episode of “The Dukes of Hazzard", we would march en masse to the cafeteria for supper, fully intent on breaking bread and getting a head start on Monday’s bio final. In spite of our most sincere intentions to dive back into academia, word would spread of a band or a house party.

The plan would become study for a solid hour, then we would go “for just one set,” certain we would study more efficiently with a break.

For every good Saturday morning intention, there was a Friday night temptation. If vet school were to be a reality, there had to be lot more studying with purpose, than sleeping it off.

Intentionally or serendipitously, there was a single factor that prevented the perpetual “one more”. Through the middle years of my time at the U of I, I had a standing date. At 6:30 sharp every Saturday morning, I met The Amazing Dick Bass at Ye Olde Donut Shop. Thirty years before texting, bailing was never a thought.

Ye Olde Donut Shop was located at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and reality. It was six blocks, two generations and a paradigm away from campus. Figuratively and literally, just south of the railroad tracks. I always realized that our weekly sessions at the donut shop kept me on task, but it wasn’t until I had graduated that I came to realize the beauty of the dingy little blue collar pastry shop.

As you walked in, the “fancy” rolls were in a glass case under the counter. On the far wall were rows of the production pastries. There were 8 swivel stools, low enough to the ground that your coattails would brush the floor on the long side of the counter. It wrapped in the shape of an “L”, where there were four more stools en route to the facilities.

I always had a chocolate long john and a white iced cake donut and two cartons of milk. ADB was adventurous. He’d have an old fashioned sour cream, and a wild card, usually based on what someone else was having. The coffee cups were full-fledged diner model, white porcelain, inch-thick walls, tapered in the middle.

Two years into our tenure at YODS we had a revelation. I took a bite and stared at the half donut in my hand, “You know, Dick Bass, this place doesn’t really have the best donuts in the world.”

“Naw, Billy Stork, I reckon I cain’t argue with you there."

“This coffee tastes like ground up goat hoof.”

In front of a classroom or in the laboratory, Dick Bass spoke like the PhD electrical engineer he was. At the donut shop, it was his native Blackshear, Georgia, “Yeah, but you cain’t beat the folks.”

Katie’s smile was worth double the dollar tip a poor college student could leave. It was not as if she wanted to watch the sun rise down Springfield Avenue on Saturday mornings, but she always acted glad to see us.

Dick and I always sat in the middle of the counter, facing “amen” corner. On the wall was Don, the long retired plumber who, by force of habit, sat opposite the water shed.

The corner stool was reserved for The Rev. “The Reverend” was retired; from what I have no clue. Without fail he would pick a topic from Champaign News Gazette or a snippet of conversation, and he would launch. The “carry out crowd” would smile, and shuffle out the door. Those of us on the long counter would nod.

And so it went, until the day things got personal. The sermon of the day became a full-fledged debate: the Rev claimed The Andy Griffith Show was insulting to rural folk.

I looked to the man on my right. Dick Bass was about to defend his PhD thesis in front of a gallery of General Electric executives. He would become a professor emeritus at Georgia Tech University and revolutionize alternative energy and transportation. He also happened to grow up halfway between Mayberry and Mt. Pilot. The Amazing Dick Bass just smiled.

The fifteen minute dust-up concluded as we laid dollar bills and quarters on the counter for Katie. We shook hands, back slapped and shuffled out, smiling.

On any given Saturday you could see folks at the counter looking occasionally over their right shoulder.  “Amen corner” looked west down Springfield Avenue. Like it was winking at you with the right headlight, and visible from 6 blocks, the yellow 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V would roll slowly into the lot.

The door big as a billboard creaked open, and a pair of Allen Edmonds wing tips, spit-shined and polished, would address the pavement. His pace spoke of a man relieved of obligations; his posture of one who had earned it. By the time one of us would open the door, a hush would consume the room.

In retrospect, I wonder what my folks must have thought. Four years at university and thousands in tuition, and the first thing I had to tell them in our Sunday night phone call was a story of an old gentleman at a donut shop. I made it as far as the shoes when dad interrupted.

“Son,” he paused to clear some space, "that is Porter Kaise.” From 45 miles away through the coiled chord of the old-fashioned land line you could feel the clench in his fist and the crease in his temples.

“I’ve worked construction for 30 years and I flat guarantee you that is the finest and fairest human I have ever had the pleasure of working for.”

Road construction to romance, “Porter’s Pearls” were words to live by. On affairs of the heart: "You need a front po-ach, and a pitcher of ice tea, young man. If you want to get with the girl you jest wait ‘til she walks by and say, 'hey little lady, why don’t you come on up here and sit fo’-a-while?'"

I would borrow a Sharpie from Katie and pull a napkin from the dispenser. The 1985 Ford Bronco II I drove did not exactly ride like a Cadillac Coup de Ville. Anything rougher than a ballroom dance floor, she would rock and roll like a rollercoaster at a small town fair. Having made a mental note, I would ask Porter “Green Street”? He would nod subtly and smile. “Between Randolph and 4th”, he specified. I lifted my hand off the words on the napkin, exactly the same.

As my 8800lb pickup truck heads due East on Hwy 18, the frost heaves rattles her ‘til the headlights are headed towards Johnson Creek. It’s been 30 years, yet I am still inspired. I ate fewer than a half dozen donuts and shared a pot of lukewarm pond water with Porter Kaise. A man known as a master of his craft, mentioned in the second breath, after the respect he showed to, and earned from those he worked with.