By Jason Coker
Being the good little Baptist that I am, I was going to the annual meeting of the Baptist Fellowship of the Northeast a couple of weeks ago in Ballston Spa, N.Y., when I had a revelation — not the John on Patmos kind, but a revelation nonetheless. It was close to 2 p.m. and I was very hungry, so I decided to stop at the next interstate rest stop for some food. You know, the kind that has a gas station and about three different kinds of fast food with trinkets all over the place. I saw the big blue sign that warned “Next Rest Stop 42 Miles!” How intimidating and scary! I moved over into the right lane to take the exit when I remembered something I had just read that week about food.
I love food — really love food. I read somewhere that suggested I actually put my fork down between bites and think about the food I was eating. This would help me, so the article said, think about the farmers who grew the food and the laborers who harvested the food and the drivers who brought the food to the market and the people who sold it and the whole thing. Putting my fork down between bites would give me time to think about the animal I was eating — don’t freak out, vegetarian friends. It would help me think about how that animal was born and raised and brought to market. Honestly, if I could remember the name of the article I would quote it, but I can’t, so this is the best I can do!
In any case, this was going through my mind when I was slowing down to take the exit. All of the sudden, I began to think of those stone frozen beef patties that I was about to unthinkingly consume and about how the beef industry in the United States is so heavily influenced by the fast food chain stores that produce those little frozen hockey pucks of beef and about how they don’t pay their laborers a living wage, etc. Well, I had almost lost my appetite by the time I decided I didn’t have to stop at the “Last Rest Stop for 42 Miles.” That was my revelation — I told you it wasn’t a John on Patmos sort of revelation.
The impact of that revelation, however, was profound. Who is telling me that I have to stop at that place and eat that food? How many small restaurants in the small towns in upstate New York have been bypassed by Interstate 87? How many of them still exist because of these mass transit interstates and their frozen pattied friends?
I was in full activist mode by this time, so I decided to take a real exit that completely took me off the toll road of I-87. That exit brought me directly into the small town of Leeds. I had never been to Leeds in my life probably because it was about an entire mile off the interstate — an entire mile! I drove into the small center of town to something entirely amazing. I drove into America. I realized that I was driving down a main street that was literally named Main Street. I was on Main Street, Leeds, New York, America, when I arrived at Betty’s Place. I parked my car on Main Street and walked into Betty’s Place — it smelled good. There was a fairly large dining area with a bar/counter with the spinning stools that were permanently fixed to the floor. I chose the counter and noticed that the woman behind the counter knew every single person in Betty’s Place except me. I asked what Betty’s Place was known for, and guess what she said? Burgers! She actually said something very close to, “Our burgers are delicious. We hand make them fresh to order everyday — nothing frozen here.” This really happened! Tears nearly came to my eyes.
I ordered a burger and a coffee. The coffee tasted like Main Street — smooth and strong. My half-pound burger arrived exactly how I ordered it — medium rare. It was about the size of my face, and it was delicious. I asked the waiter if she was Betty. She laughed and said no. Betty had just sold the place to another local woman, who was going to keep it just like Betty had it — perfect. Shelly, the woman making Betty’s Place happen that afternoon, told me that Betty had breast cancer and thankfully beat it, but after such an experience, she decided to take it easy from now on and let someone else have the restaurant.
Betty is a human being. Shelly is a human being. The cook in the back that made my burger exactly how I ordered it is a human being. And get this: they treated me like a human being, too. Everyone in Betty’s Place was treated like a human being. Everybody belonged in Betty’s Place — even me, a diasporic Mississippian living in the Northeast. And I nearly missed it. I nearly stopped at the not so “Last Rest Stop for 42 Miles!”
My revelation: pay close attention to who is making your decisions for you without you even knowing it. Who determines that you eat frozen hockey pucks at the expense of a delicious burger? How many times have I missed all the Betty’s Places out there because I wasn’t paying any attention to my life — what road I’m on, how fast I’m going and what I’d compromise to get there. Who is telling me to stop here when I should keep going to the next exit? If I don’t pay closer attention, places like Betty’s Place may not exist much longer, and then what kind of world will we have? It will be a world we made ourselves without giving it any thought. The scary thing about all this is that there is someone/something out there making these decisions for us, at least until we start making these decisions for ourselves.