This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 20, 2011 - The Olivette Diner sits in a strip mall at 9638 Olive Boulevard defining authenticity. Except for some interesting photographs on the walls, the decor is basic and so's the food. What comes forth from the kitchen is well prepared and honest, and whether you're affecting a desire for good health and order the oatmeal or throw over caution in favor of a genuine whole-hog No. 4 feast, my experience is, you'll be well nourished and not disappointed when you walk back into the world.
That said, when I met up with the Knights of the Crispy Bacon at 8 yesterday morning (Jan. 19, 2011) it became apparent things were not the same, and could never be again. That condition obtains because of the death of the Olivette Diner's super server, the late Jack Jones.
Mr. Jones died on Jan. 3. He had a long history of heart disease, and the placements of stent after stent -- 13 in all -- in his coronary arteries finally ceased to bring him good health. On New Year's Day he complained to his boss and his friend, Vince Diblasi, owner of the diner, that he was ailing. He probably would have to take Monday off, he said. Diblasi had heard this business before, but before, bright and early, Mr. Jones would show up, and go to work, never slacking off, working solo, serving all the tables during the busy shift of the day, which begins at 6 a.m. when the door opens, until to 10:30 or so.
The Knights summoned me to their rectangular table because they felt compelled to give Mr. Jones his due and wanted to sketch for me a picture of a waiter who had come to mean so much to them, a man who had, indeed, over the years, come to occupy a central place in their lives. Each one of these fellows, these self-dubbed Knights, is a man of substance, well educated, comfortable. Their relationship with Mr. Jones occupied only an hour or so a week of their busy lives, but in their allied estimation he occupied a far, far greater share of time and space.
Various attempts were made to explain the extraordinary quality of their relationships with Mr. Jones. They praised his ability to manage the orders of the entire diner-full of breakfast customers with super-human equanimity and grace. There was no asking a Knight, "What'll you have?" because he remembered each man's breakfast order precisely, and remembered idiosyncrasies integral to that order. They laughed about the time he took umbrage when one of the Knights asked Mr. Jones to please be certain some special but routine desire were fulfilled.
The Knights appreciated, perhaps even envied, his free spiritedness, and regarded the profusion of tattoos and his hell's angelical hair as cool, and seemed not to be particularly aware of the ironic contrast between Mr. Jones's out-there haberdashery and their own decidedly preppy armor.
As brave and daring Knights, they admired his bravery and daring, manifested in his refusals to take any guff off anybody, and, if someone transgressed the obnoxiousness boundary, his willingness to throw the rascal out. The Knights had plenty good to say about the diner's proprietor, Diblasi. They said he never faltered in his loyalty and generosity to Mr. Jones. They said also that I would never hear about his generosity from him. He is not one to speak of his steadfastness, they told me.
On Wednesday, after the pressure was off at the counter, Diblasi came over and sat with us for a while, and it was clear that the proprietor, in his own quietly dignified way, ached with the dull, persistent pain that settles in when you lose a cherished friend. Mr. Jones and Diblasi worked together at the diner for a decade at least, first as colleagues, and then, after Diblasi bought the place, as employee and boss.
"He was like a brother. I was lost when he died. The thing about Jack was, he never sat down, he was always serving, always cleaning when the place cleared out, always moving. He was always looking for something to do. He can do the work of three," he said, then caught himself, seemingly realizing he'd spoken of his friend in the present tense.
"I definitely miss him, especially early in the morning," in the quiet before the customers begin to arrive, Diblasi said.
"He was one of a kind," Knight Sandy Peters said. "Ideal," said Joe Carpenter. "Amazing," offered Ted Atwood.
All those descriptions have substance. But when you think about it, there are plenty of men and women who fit that bill, and they don't wind up being featured characters in the chronicles of our lives, figuring prominently in the personal and persuasive mythologies we create to help us to make sense of things in a chaotic and crazy world.
Why does Jack Jones stand so tall? Because, for the Knights of the Crispy Bacon, and likely for so many who found themselves regularly at a table or at the counter in the storefront diner on Olive Boulevard, Mr. Jones, in dispensing a rare and humane form of nourishment over the years, became the Olivette Diner.
As such Jack Jones was authentic.
And authentic, now and always, is a quality hard to come by.