DeSoto’s for the Fish

Something from the tackle box:

     Keep being concerned about each other as the Lord’s followers should.  Be sure to welcome strangers into your home.  By doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests, without even knowing it.  (Hebrews 13:1-2 CEV)

       I recently got home from a few days visit to Gulf Shores, Alabama.  It’s a trip that I’ve made every late summer for the last several years now.  About twenty-five years ago my parents started spending winters in Gulf Shores.  A couple of months at first, then three months, then four, and stretching out to five months by the time they hit their seventies.  When it got to the point where they were spending more time in Alabama then at their home in Michigan, my parents (wisely, I think) decided to sell their home up here and buy a house in Gulf Shores.  And that is exactly what they did about twelve years ago now, - just before Hurricane Ivan hit their new home neighborhood hard in 2004!

       Dad actually took that storm as a good omen concerning their decision to move to the coast.  Their brand new home, built in compliance with the most up-to-date codes, weathered that major storm admirably, despite being located less than two miles from the beach.  Aside from replacing a few shingles and a couple of tipped over palm trees, Mom and Dad were able to move in and set up house when many of their new neighbors, including their church and their favorite place to eat, DeSoto’s Seafood Restaurant, were faced with major rebuilding and repairs.  Some of which they helped out with as this was their new home, and those less fortunate folks their new neighbors. 

dad and joe on the U.P. hay farm

       Even though my parents love being Alabamians now, complete with a Gulf Shores P.O. box, Alabama driver’s license, and voter registration cards, they do drift back north to spend the summer months of June, July and August at our cottage on Long Lake in Cheboygan County, Michigan.  After all, there is the Jarvie family reunion picnic on the 4^th of July, Mom needs a chance to visit with friends and relatives she wouldn’t otherwise see living in Alabama, and Dad wants to drive tractor and bale hay on my bother Joe’s farm just across the bridge in the U.P.  While some of the Rudyard locals up there, including a few relatives, have let my brother know that he shouldn’t be letting his 87 year old father work like that at hay time, my Dad says that he will whip anyone who mentions that in his hearing.  And so Mom and Pop come up in the summer to stay connected with family, old friends, – and to help bale hay. 

       This brings me around to my annual trip south at the end of each summer.  While Dad is still capable of making the twelve hundred mile drive from the Straits of Mackinaw to the Gulf Coast by himself (Mom can no longer help with the driving because of her failing eyesight) it’s a lot easier to do it with some help.  Now, at the beginning of each summer, my brother Joe flies down to Pensacola and he and dad share the driving north to Michigan.  Then, at the end of the summer, I share the drive south with Mom and Pop, spend a few days in the late summer heat of Gulf Shores with them, and then fly home from Pensacola.  It’s actually gotten to be an enjoyable and somewhat anticipated tradition for both my brother and myself.  And this finally brings me around to the focal point of this story – DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen!

my parent's car is closest to the door, as usual

       Since my folks first started spending the months of January and February in Gulf Shores, close to thirty years ago now, their very favorite place to go out and eat lunch has been DeSoto’s Seafood Kitchen.  Mom and Dad were introduced to this local landmark by new friends already devoted to this Gulf Shores institution, and soon fell in step with this local lunchtime tradition.  All these years later, they still eat lunch at DeSoto’s every single day they don’t have some good reason to be somewhere else for lunch.  At the very least, they eat at DeSoto’s five days out of any given week, and usually more.  They have their own table reserved for 11:00 o’clock, when the place opens up and Mom and Pop will be found up towards the front of the line waiting at the door to get in.  Lunch at DeSoto’s is de rigueur for Elmer and Junia Jarvie.

       Now, I’ll be the first person to tell you that the seafood at DeSoto’s is good.  In fact it is very good, and always has been.  DeSoto’s reputation as a first rate seafood restaurant is of long standing.  But lets be honest, there are at least a couple of dozen very good seafood restaurants within a fifteen minute drive of my folk’s place in Gulf Shores, a couple of them are within sight of DeSoto’s, and I’ll bet that there are several hundred within an hour’s drive.  Why this unwavering loyalty to this one – albeit very good – eatery? 

       This was a question that had puzzled my wife and I for over two decades. My Dad always told us it was the broiled grouper, which he orders almost every day for lunch, but since I’ve been making the long drive back home with Mom and Dad these last several years now, I’ve learned the real answer.  Yes, the food is good, but what really makes it the place to be for my folks, is the sense of belonging to a caring community, which they experience at DeSoto’s, and that brings them back day after day. 

       Now, belonging to a caring community entails more than what it sounds like at first hearing.  There is more to belonging to a community than making sure that everyone is greeted with a pleasant smile, warm greeting, and sincere inquiries as to how you are doing.  It’s always nice to ask how someone is, it makes for a pleasant meeting, but it is quite another thing to be a participating agent in how that person is, a real factor in whether or not they are doing poorly or well, before you even ask the question. 

mom and dad at "their" table by the window

       Let me explain how it works for my folks at DeSoto’s.  When we arrive at their home after our trip south it’s about three in the afternoon.  Way to late to get their usual table by the window at DeSoto’s for lunch.  But Dad says, “Well, lets go there for dinner tonight. (by which he means five o’clock in the afternoon)  The dinner menu is more expensive than lunch – but that’s OK. – We can afford it!”  My Mom and Dad like a good lunch deal, but they are not afraid to shell out good money for a good meal either, they tip very well too, and so we walk through the front door of DeSoto’s late in the afternoon. 

the new kid at the door

       The first staffer to see us is new, doesn’t know them, but politely and professionally escorts us into the lower dining area, where older staff start spotting them, and start congregating around them, so glad to have them home.  They even remember me, from last year when I brought Elmer and Junia back to them.  Someone checks and finds that their usual lunch spot is just being bussed.  Another minute and we are being ushered to an ordinary table with lots of light from the window shining on it.  It’s where they belong.  One by one the staff and friends start dropping by the table.  “How was the lake this year?  How was the drive south?  Did you get in that big storm we saw up in Michigan on the news?  How much hay did you get in the barn this summer?  How was the family?  Will you be playing bridge tomorrow at the senior center?”  And my folks are asking them as many questions about their lives as they’re being asked about theirs. 

     When we get up to pay and leave we find the restaurant owner is at the cash register.  It all starts over again!  The laughing, the hugging, the kissing.  She gets out her cell phone and takes pictures, – and then messages them to all of the staff who aren’t at work right now, - so that everyone knows that Elmer and Junia are home.  On the way out Dad calls back from the door, “We’ll see you tomorrow at the usual time.” 

the usual clientele and staff

       And that’s when the homecoming really started.  Now it’s not just the staff – it’s everyone!  We’re there at five minutes before eleven and there are already three cars in the lot and five people waiting at the door for the place to unlock.  They all know Mom and Dad.  One of them is Jerry.  Now Jerry is a true local, a genuine Alabamian, whom I’m pretty sure has never been out of the state, and whom I wouldn’t be surprised to learn hadn’t ever even been outside of Baldwin County.  Jerry runs a one man lawn care service, that one man being Jerry himself.  Jerry mows my folk’s grass while they are in Michigan for the summer.  He also keeps and eye on the place while they’re gone.  It’s a job.  But Jerry acts like my Mom and Dad are kinfolk when he sees us driving up, like favorite cousins or something, and it’s genuine. 

       It’s the same with the other regular patrons that start filing in after we’re seated at our table.  Our waitress, one of several that have been on staff for years at DeSoto’s, tells us how glad she was to see the picture of Mom and Dad, home safe and sound, that the boss had sent her the night before.  The talk then turns to family, her’s as well as my folks’, joys and triumphs, illnesses and tragedies, love, and really caring.  Oh! – and the grouper was fantastic!

Something to take home in your creel:

       Being the pastor of a small town, mainline church with an aging congregation, I have grown used to hearing the continually echoed lament; “We’re dying!  If we can’t attract some younger people soon, we'll be closing the doors in a few years!”  It is a constant sigh, breathed out with every breath it seems, like background music in a funeral home.  But, despite hearing it all the time, I’ve learned that it is not necessarily so.  A church’s spiritual health is not dictated by its size and demographic composition.  A growing church, full of active youngsters, in not necessarily a healthy church.  An older congregation of a few silver haired saints hanging on to their traditions is not necessarily a declining church.  The only sure indicator that I’ve found to gage how a church is doing, the direction they are moving in spiritually, is how the people who are in that church are treating each other, and how they are treating the world around them.