{"id":37829,"date":"2011-05-16T14:19:40","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T18:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=37829"},"modified":"2011-05-16T14:35:59","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T18:35:59","slug":"the-two-old-guys-at-the-diner-a-transcript","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=37829","title":{"rendered":"The Two Old Guys at the Diner: A Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

My schedule is not a 9 to 5 schedule, and so for a while most mornings I would go and have breakfast at a local diner (“my” diner, I think of it), and on weekdays it was usually pretty dead. All of the waitresses know me now, and put in my order when they see me coming. It’s a relaxed place, pretty old-school. Every morning, Monday to Friday, two old guys would be there at the counter, reading The New York Times<\/i>. I got the sense that they did not come together, but that this was sort of a thing they did, as friends, meet up for breakfast every morning. They are never there on the weekends, however. At least I’ve never seen them there. These men are 78, 79, if they are a day. One had what I took to be a German accent, but I got from his comments that he has been in the United States for decades. They talk about the news. They chat about all kinds of different topics. They are both well-read. I do not fact-check them, because that would be beside the point. They are chatting, they are throwing the ball of conversation in the air, over their coffee and pancakes. They enjoy discussing the philosophy behind world events, the motivations of people like Genghis Khan or Stalin. They get into it, in a banter that I have come to treasure. (It reminds me a bit of the classic Statler and Waldorf<\/a> dialogue I overheard years ago at a play here in New York.) <\/p>\n

One day I decided to write down what the guys said, as much of it as I could possibly cram onto one napkin. Here is a transcript. This is just one small slice of what they talked about in one conversation<\/i>. You can see why I love it when they’re there at the same time I am.<\/p>\n

Guy 1: “She and Queen Mary Stuart were cousins. They were very intermingled.”
\nGuy 2: “It’s all one family.”
\nGuy 1: “She was a Catholic and Lizzie was Church of England.”
\nGuy 2: Yes, but she had a good job in Scotland. Why did she need more and more?”
\nGuy 1: “James became King of Scotland after she was decapitated. She had to take all her clothes off …”
\nGuy 2: “Like Marie Antoinette.”
\nGuy 1: “Yes.”
\nGuy 2: “In the old days they had the hatchet. And then this guy named Guillotine came along – like Gillette – like the razor. They were barbarians.”
\nGuy 1: “They called her the Virgin Queen. You know why?”<\/p>\n

\n

Guy 2: “We have more gold bullion than anyone.”
\nGuy 1: “Member Goldfinger<\/i>?”
\nGuy 2: “Oh, yes.”
\nGuy 1: “Member King Midas?”
\nGuy 2: “He had a lot of gold, yes.”<\/p>\n

\nGuy 1: “Everyone stole everything from Tesla. He was the genius. He came from Serbia, one of those Balkan countries. He came here, he didn’t have a job. He was told ‘Go see Thomas Edison’ – He did, and he stole everything.”<\/p>\n

\nGuy 2: “Do they kill people in New Jersey?
\nGuy 1: “No.”
\nGuy 2: “You kill 20 people in Texas and you come here – then you have to go back there.”<\/p>\n

\nGuy 1: “Name me one good honest king.”
\nGuy 2: “Charlemagne.”
\nHuge bursts of laughter from both.<\/i>
\nGuy 2: “Oh, no, he killed all of the Saxons, didn’t he? He shot them himself. But he must have had something in it for himself.”<\/p>\n

\nGuy 2: “Dillinger went into business for himself. That’s the way they figured it in those days.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My schedule is not a 9 to 5 schedule, and so for a while most mornings I would go and have breakfast at a local diner (“my” diner, I think of it), and on weekdays it was usually pretty dead. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37829"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37833,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37829\/revisions\/37833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}