Lunch with the one and only Mr. Positive

Notebook Recollections

Tuesday, October 22, 2024 ,1 p.m.

The fall weather is extra-ordinary today. 80°. Blue sky. Patches of atmosphere with the correct water content and altitude have been tricked into Cumulo-Nimbus white fluffs. Even the street folks look happy for this moment.

I’m walking to the Day By Day Café.

“Sit with me,” Carl says from a round metal outdoor table at the café as I approach.

Of course I will.

“The cancer is better,” said Carl. “My esophagus is good. I’m going to live another 30 years. 2054.”

I ordered a Diet Coke and a chicken-blueberry salad.

I can’t imagine Mr. Positive gone from us. The goodness he has dispensed. The cheer, the clear sidewalks and well trimmed lawns. Carl gone? I have passed his beautiful house every workday for 34 years. 10,200 times!

The can’t miss Carl-mobile is perfectly parked between two pickups on West 7th, 10 feet from where we sit.

Carl peels back a sheathed straw and places it in my Diet Coke and moves my silverware atop a napkin.

Carl has lost weight. 195 to 174. He looks hale and hearty.

Best friend Karen has solved all the chemo insurance snafus.

Mr. Positive gets up from the table and goes inside for cream.

Several just-arriving patrons stop in their tracks to look at Carl‘s trusty three-wheeler steed. It is majestic. The beige awning, the lights, the reflectors. One takes a picture of three friends gathered around it.

Carl is back with a handful of creamers and empties all six of them into his coffee cup. Then he leans forward, borrows my Diet Coke and pours in some to his coffee.

Our food arrives. A mushroom and tomato hamburger with wild rice soup for Carl and my Chicken blueberry salad.

“When will it snow?” I asked Carl.

“By Thanksgiving,” he answers. 

Day by Day Hector wheels a big just-emptied trash barrel by our table and is having trouble getting it back into Day By Day. Carl jumps up and helps him make the transfer.

“Karen‘s birthday was two weeks ago.” Carl says as he sits back down and takes a bite of his hamburger.

Carl opens up a 1964 American Motors Rambler Ambassador car manual. 

“Grandma Risdall had a new, green 1963 Rambler. With automatic power steering and a handbrake for the handicapped. But she wasn’t handicapped.”

I asked Carl if he missed work. He was six months retired.

“A little,” he said. “I go back every now and then.”

West 7 th cab driver extraordinaire, William Texan Dubois, knows and appreciates Carl. Tex says Carl “ministers“ to West 7th. “A lot of people will grieve him when he’s gone…”

On a down day, I am known to walk or drive by Carl‘s house for a wave or howdy.

Tex also knows that Carl is a “light-nut.” Flashlights, holiday lights, colored lights. Lights on his bike. Golden reflectors sewn into his orange jacket. He’s always ready to light up the dark.

Tex says Carl’s favorite breakfast is “Beacon and eggs.”

Back to Carl’s and my lunch.

Carl orders yogurt and strawberries for dessert.

“Healthy dessert,” I say.

“You got to enjoy life before you go in the box,” He says to me.

Stuart Loughridge and his wife Carolyn just then walk by our table on the way to St.Vinnies with 2 heavy duty, two-wheeled dollies. They both say hello to Carl. 

A silent, but lit-up ambulance speeds down 7th.

I ask Carl who he’s going to vote for.

“The nicer one,” said Carl. “This weekend will be Indian Summer.”

Carl isn’t Mr. Positive for nothing.

end