Not Just a Summer Job - A Tribute to Cashar and Mabel Evans

I worked at a restaurant – The Fenwick Crab House - in Fenwick Island, Delaware, during my high school and college years (1977-1982).  The restaurant was owned by Cashar and Mabel Evans of Selbyville, Delaware, from 1962 to 1983.  In February of 2006, I sent this letter to Mrs. Evans.  It appears here in a slightly edited version.  It is long, but there's an awesome life lesson summed up at the end (if I must say so myself).

Dear Mrs. Evans,

This correspondence is long overdue.  There were a few things I have been meaning to tell you.

This is no exaggeration… I have a dream about the Crab House two or three times a year.  It is always a similar dream.  I come in to work, years after having been there, and I am expected to cook.  But it has been so long that I can’t remember what to do.  It isn’t traumatic or anything… I just realize that time has passed, and I need to re-learn the job.  Those years in the kitchen must have made quite an impression for me to still be dreaming about it.

The Crab House

I became aware of job openings at the Crab House through Michael.  It was the spring after we got our driver’s licenses… 1977 (see my first car).  We were both looking for jobs, and Mike came into school one day and said he had gotten a job at the Crab House.  I asked what he would be doing.  Washing dishes and peeling potatoes are the only two chores I recall him mentioning.  According to Mike, they needed more people to wash dishes and peel potatoes.  I could do that, I thought.  And working with my best friend Mike would be ideal. 

A nervous phone call to Mr. Evans ended with an invitation to come to Selbyville to “interview” for a job.  He told me where you lived…a white house in view of a Rick’s Laundromat - the only house with a white picket fence.  I drove to Selbyville to a house with a picket fence in view of Rick’s.  No one came to the door.  A neighbor alerted me that I was at the wrong house.  You lived in the other only house with the picket fence.  I “passed” the interview, and had landed my first job.  I think it was my relation to my mother and Grandfather Elias that made you feel obligated to give me a chance.

Despite my inability to find your house, I did find the Crab House on the first day of work.  I drove down with Mike, thinking the company would help with first day jitters.  I had known a few people who had worked there, my older brother Buddy included.  He lasted about a week.  I recall riding with mom one rainy day taking him down.  It must have been before he got his license.  Perhaps the dreariness of the rain impacted his desire to work there.  I also knew of Donald, who had talked about eating strawberries when he was supposed to be making the famous strawberry pies while standing in the walk-in cooler.  I don’t know if he quit, or was fired for eating strawberries.

Potato Peeler

The Salad Slicer        

That first summer, I washed dishes and did occasionally peel potatoes, although you had that nifty potato peeler.  I learned that if you left the potatoes in too long, you ended up with potatoes the size of golf balls and cherry tomatoes.  And I also learned, or actually re-learned, to make salad.  We made salad on the table in the back porch next to the cole slaw mixer.  I was standing there one day doing the cucumbers.  It took no great skill… cut both ends off, and force them through the slicer.  But I managed to fumble on step one.  I was cutting the ends back to where the seeds started.  Mr. Evans came strolling in to see what we were up to.  “Why are you cutting so much off the end of the cucumber?” he questioned.  “Well, that’s the way my mother does it”, I responded.  It was then I first learned about the quick wit and intolerance for impertinence of Mr. Evans.  “HOW LONG HAS YOUR MOTHER BEEN IN THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS?” he bellowed.  I don’t think I intentionally determined to cut the cucumbers in a way that was different from how I was told to, but I did learn that day the importance of paying close attention to instructions.  We have gotten many a laugh recalling that story.  My mother especially enjoyed it.

The Cole Slaw Mixer.

It may have been about my 2^nd year when my impertinence reared its ugly head again.  I was a slow learner.  Mr. Townsend, a very, very old man, would come in to eat several times a week.  I did not really grasp the significance of what Mr. Evans was doing for him at the time, because I was young and self-centered.  Mr. Evans would hand-prepare Mr. Townsend’s dinner.  It was usually - no, make that always - broiled chicken breasts- no skin, sautéed asparagus, and boiled potatoes.  Mr. Evans considered the task of cooking for his old friend a privilege.  I viewed it as just a chore.  Sometimes Mr. Evans would cut up the chicken himself.  But often he would come to me and ask that I go get a chicken and do the honors, as I was one of the resident chicken prep guys.  By this time in my Crab House career, I had advanced to Clam Man, a job I took over from Rex.  I thought that I was very busy one night when Mr. Evans requested that I cut up two chicken breasts for him.  A little exasperated and wondering why he couldn’t do it himself, I said “Mr. Evans I’m really busy right now.”  Wrong answer.  “You’re not too busy to work for ME!!!” he shouted.  I missed the whole point of Mr. Townsend’s dinners.  I was too young to have an old friend that I loved to serve.

I met my first love working at the Crab House.  She was a wonderful girl, and Mr. Evans loved her.  But he felt it was important to constantly tell me the hazards of first loves.  He warned me over and over about these hazards.  I ignored him, and finally figured out on my own that first loves should not occur during your senior year of high school.  A better time for a first love would be around the age of 23, after you have finished with college and have maybe worked a year or two.

I met my second love after ending the relationship with my first, also a waitress at the Crab House.  She was a wonderful girl as well, and Mr. Evans loved her as well too.  He did not warn me about second loves.  His mistake was that he should have warned the girls about me, not the other way around.  I was just too darned serious at the wrong time.  Like I said… 23 would have been a better age.  Or perhaps 31 would have been even better.

My first day on the job, I had come under the instruction of Will.  Will was only a couple of years older than I, but seemed much more mature and wise.  He became one of my mentors at the Crab House.  He seemed flawless in his job and in the way he related to the rest of the gang at the Crab House.  He was universally accepted as our peer leader. 

While Will was our peer leader, we also had our teacher leader, Dave (Dave was a school teacher, and spent his summers at the Crab House as manager).  How did you find these guys?  Dave had been there 13 years, and Will about 5, by the time I came.  They were whole-heartedly devoted to the restaurant, but most of all devoted to the Crab House family.  I had great respect for both of them.  You know as well as I that the Crab House would have been a very different place without them.  I learned from them what defined the proper relationship between us employees and you and Mr. Evans, the owners.  I never saw them be impertinent towards either of you the way I could be.  And they both became my guide in that regard.

I mentioned that I had taken over the job of Clam Man from Rex.  Rex had a way of joking and kidding that I really enjoyed.  One day, while training me on the clam steamer, he mentioned that if you aren’t sure if a clam is good or not, you can tap two together.  If they make a solid clicking sound, then both are good.  If one is dead, it won’t hold its shell tightly together, and it will make a dull thud.  It was legitimate instruction, I think.  You never knew about Rex.  He may have over-emphasized the necessity of this task, because I took him to mean that you should do this on every clam you put in a bucket for steaming.  So if you were to observe me doing clams, you would have heard an incessant tapping of clams.  I can be a little compulsive, and it became a compulsion to tap clams together.  I didn’t want a dead clam in the steamer.  Mr. Evans caught me doing this early on.  He asked why I was knocking the clams together, and I told him (not impertinently, mind you) that I was checking to see if they were good.  “Rex told me to do it” I added.  I had learned from the cucumber episode to follow directions to the “T”.  Mr. Evans roared in laughter.  From that day on, he referred to me as “Knock-knock”.  It makes me laugh just thinking about it.  The following spring, working some before the season started, he had forgotten what nick-name he had given me.  I reminded him, and “Knock-knock” stuck for the rest of my time at the Crab House.  Reminding him of the name was proof that I enjoyed his term of endearment for me.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized I wasn’t really cut out to be a line cook.  My favorite thing to do at the Crab House was to cook out of Siberia II.  That’s because I would have just a couple of waitresses, and would be able to work on one or two orders at a time.  What I realized just a few years ago is that I am not a great multi-task person.  I don’t do well trying to do a bunch of stuff all at once - thus my attraction to Sib II.  The next favorite job was Siberia I.  It was not as busy as the main kitchen, and much less chaotic.  So even when it did get busy down there, there were fewer things to distract me from cooking.  Plus, it normally meant you would be the first to get off work.  I don’t know if everyone else knew all this about my abilities or not.  If they did, they were sensitive enough not to make an issue if it.  But my guess is that you all understood our strengths and weaknesses, and put us where we would work the best.  It was wise on your part, and as I look back, much appreciated on mine.

One of the things I really enjoyed was the pre-season work.  I enjoyed going with Will and Mr. Evans down to the Crab House before we opened.  The place had a peculiar smell.  Once in a while, I will be someplace that will have that same smell.  What I liked was being in that select few who could be on the “inside”.  Perhaps I was really seeking to be a right hand.  I wanted to be a go-to guy for Mr. Evans. 

On a Saturday morning after the restaurant season had ended, Mr. Evans called me at home.  He invited me to go to a University of Delaware football game with you.  It was the same day that my grandfather chose to dig out his potatoes, a yearly task for one Saturday in the fall.  He would plant rows and rows, enough to feed everyone in the family who wanted them for the entire winter.  We would all go and dig them out after he turned over the dirt with the tractor.  It was an all-day affair of digging, loading them into baskets, and transporting them to the pump house for storage.  I enjoyed it to a degree.  But I also viewed it as sort of an obligation, partly so we could share in the free potatoes all winter, and partly because Poppop couldn’t do it alone.  The day Mr. Evans called, I can’t really say I was totally thrilled about going to the game.  I had never even been to a college game.  And there were the potatoes.  Looking back, I am sure my family would have given me the go-ahead to go to the game.  But I dug potatoes instead.  I should have gone to the game with you and Mr. Evans.  I should have accepted your generosity.  It was a great privilege to have been invited to spend the day with you, and in my foolishness, I missed it.

There is a brick wall in front of Prince George's Chapel in Dagsboro.  Sections of it have been replaced over the years due to cars driving through it.  Some of those new bricks were due to Kendra driving her car through it late one night after work.  She fell asleep on the way home to Laurel.  I don’t know exactly what you did, but I recall hearing that you either loaned her the money to buy a new car, or gave her some money towards a new car.  Either way, it was a very generous and caring thing to do, and I took note of it.  It was completely in character for both of you. (More on Prince George's)

One summer, Dorothy had a hernia repaired.  You made a place for her out front, seating customers.  Perhaps it was a wise move on your part, as she was so cheerful, chatty, and cute.  But I was very aware that you were taking care of her until she was well enough to go back to waiting tables.

While I was dating Sherry, you invited us to a New Year’s Eve party in Rehoboth, the Old Landing Country Club, I think, or perhaps it was Rehoboth Beach Yacht and Country Club.  It was a very classy affair, as one would expect.  The old folks did the Jitterbug and what not.  We felt privileged to spend the evening with you.  I knew that we were much more than a couple of kids who just worked for you. 

And that is my whole point.  You and Mr. Evans made all of us a part of your lives.  We were not just employees.  You loved us, and we loved you back, because you earned it by investing yourselves in our lives.  I learned in those 5 years that life isn’t just about work.  It is more about people.  And when you experience it in the ideal way, you end up dreaming about it for the next 24 years.

I have often wondered if I could have better spent my summers someplace other than the Crab House.  At least one spring, I was considering looking elsewhere for a summer job.  I waited until late in the spring to call Mr. Evans and let him know I would like to return to the Crab House that year.  Mr. Evans seemed to know what I had been contemplating.  He didn’t say much about it, but said just enough to let me know it bothered him that I had felt the need to consider going someplace else for summer work.  I can only recall thinking about not returning that one year.

But if I had, in fact, done something else with my summers, I would not have learned about young love, a first hand experience I shall be sure to try to relate to my own children.  I would have forfeited the opportunity to work with a wide variety of young kids of all kinds of backgrounds.  The Crab House was a training ground for relationships.  I would have missed all that. 

And I would not have had the opportunity to work with a couple 50 years my senior, and to develop a friendship with that couple that went far beyond an employee/employer relationship. 

I do not think the fruit of that experience is over yet.  I fully expect some day to have an opportunity to befriend a young man or woman 50 years my junior and be able to influence their lives as you and Mr. Evans did mine.  And at that time, I expect to hear an almost-audible bell go off in my head, and I’ll say to myself… Now this is why I spent five of the most impressionable years of my life with the Evans'.