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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

I’ve eaten at the Take It Or Leave It Café four times.

John Muir wrote about “toiling in the treadmills of life.”

Regardless of what kind of treadmill you’re on, it builds an appetite and when you’re hungry, it’s not the journey, it’s the destination. I wanted to put the foot of my hunger into the stirrup of ingestion. I went looking for a delicious and nutritious breakfast.

I’d been left to my own devices. I stopped at a convenience store/bakery in Juneau, Alaska, to pick up a breakfast newspaper. The ones at Donna’s Cafe too often had ketchup on them or stains from the morning elixir (coffee). I like a paper with my breakfast and I like Donna’s. I don’t want to brag, but I’m often allowed on the furniture there and, as a preferred customer, they give me a free toothpick.

Outside the bakery, I encountered ravens. Ravens are smart. Had there been a raven in my high school class, we’d have had a class valedictorian. The school had refused to give that award to our leading student, who had nearly a C- average. That was unfair. I watched ravens walking through the drive-through lane of a fast-food restaurant. Two of them, checking the ground for fallen French fries and homeless hamburgers, bumped into one another. It was a feather bender. Humans got bags of grub to go and then walked the short distance to the bakery to get a doughnut or sweet roll to put the finishing touches on a meal. The walk was just long enough that they could eat the bagged meals and deposit the empty bags in a proper waste receptacle outside the bakery.

The ravenous ravens flew to the trash container and used their big bills to pull the bags out. They shook, ripped, tore, sliced, diced and even made julienne fries of the bags. Ravens discovered tasty morsels of forgotten fries and broken buns. The bags were essential to the ravens, as like me, they enjoyed a paper with their breakfast.

Donna’s is a one-of-a-kind eatery, as most independent cafes are. The best things about franchised restaurants are their locations, familiarity and that they are open. No one knows the ways of the wind or of a local cafe. Each cafe has a personality. I like that.

I’ve stopped in a coffee shop in Fayette, Iowa, where I devoured an Iowa sweet corn cookie. It was a sugar cookie as full of sweet corn as an Iowa summer. In John Wayne’s birthplace, Winterset, Iowa, I sat on a swivel stool and had the Duke’s favorite chili, loaded with beef and without beans at the Northside Café.

I enjoy places where I don’t need to check my bird book. It’s chicken. I’ve feasted at many local cafes and realized that people had died of old age searching for food that good. I’d have paid twice as much for food half as good. In each restaurant, the wisdom flowed like water in a hurry from those seated at the Table of Infinite Knowledge. Not wanting to be a failed listener, I lean in. The tables are manned by men who go anywhere and talk to whomever about whatever. No one at the Table of Infinite Knowledge minds his own business. It’s not our way. One said the food at a cafe was good, but the knives were more tender than the steaks. Another added, “If you love a mystery, you’ll love the special.” A third commented about a champion eater. I ate a side salad while considering Joey Chestnut, who had eaten 76 Nathan’s hot dogs, buns and all, in 10 minutes to win an eating contest. He consumed 22,800 calories.

He must wear starting blocks on his elbows.

Back to Donna’s Cafe. I walked to the cafe; building an appetite on the way. They didn’t roll out the red carpet for me, but I felt as if they had. If they weren’t glad to see me, they did an excellent job of pretending. The server’s pleasant demeanor and welcoming smile did as much for tourism as anyone else in Juneau.

“Have a good morning,” she said.

“Have one yourself,” I replied as I left.

I’d already had one.

Al Batt’s column appears in the Tribune every Wednesday.