2006 Customer of the Year Award

It has always quietly amazed me how easily Mum & Gra attract happy people, & make cranky ones into happier ones. I comment all the time to people (who think, I think, that I'm just making it all up) about how they can walk into anywhere (I particularly notice restaurants) & are either greeted like old friends, or walk out with new ones. There are places all over the country with people who spend days in hard work for little pay, dealing with customer after customer, hundreds of people passing through their lives on a regular basis. And yet, some magic happens when Mum & Gra appear. Faces light up, the mood gets better.. and the service, too! Let me tell you... Graham's notions of good service aren't in the least slack, either - we may have hastened his sordid decline into the sloppy Americanized English language, but he has certainly retained his high standards where service is concerned. Somehow, he almost always gets it.

It really isn't much... they just always have a ready smile, a small familiar way of speaking to a person that makes them seem like... well... a person. I don't know that I've ever in my life seen them look at another person as though their only purpose in life is to serve like an automaton. But it makes such an ENORMOUS difference! I have personally experienced the restaurant phenomena with them... and a year later, gone back to the same place, happened to get the same waitress... and she remembered them. Utterly amazing. They are the quintessential representation of the pebbles that make those ongoing ripples in the proverbial pond.


2006 Customer of the Year Award - Morning Star Cafe in Salisbury, IL.

Well... here's proof in the pudding so you all don't think I'm just spinning tales. Today, they stopped by a little cafe in Salisbury, IL (NOT their hometown) that they visit from time to time on their travels. Completely out of the blue, they were presented with this little scroll signed by all the waitresses announcing that they have been chosen the 2006 "Customers of the Year" & it was accompanied by a whole fresh homemade rhubarb pie. Probably ice cream, too, if I know them.

If there are things we inherit from our parents, whether it be via nurture or nature, I can't think of much I'd like to receive & retain from mine more than this: the ability to attract & retain good people to surround us, & make the lives I touch - even briefly - just a little brighter.