Love on A Silver Platter

Love on a Silver Platter

          It’s not often you get love served to you on a silver platter.

When I was fifteen years old, my father graduated from college. He had started his college career in the regular way at the regular age, but his education had been interrupted when he was crossing a street one evening. A drunk driver careened around a corner knocking him down and dragging his sweetheart three blocks.

My father had a phobia about hospitals but faithfully visited his girlfriend always looking a little green around the gills. Because of this close call, he decided to quit school and get a job so that he could marry the love of his life. 

Twelve years and six kids later, he decided it was time to go back and finish what he’d started. In those twelve years, he had moved his family across the country several times and lost a leg to cancer. It took him six long years to finish the two he’d missed. During that time, he attended classes two nights a week, managed Little League teams, became a public speaker, volunteered for the American Cancer Society, attended innumerable school concerts and parent nights, flew kites, took his children fishing and clamming, and built a state-of-the-art stereo system. 

Now the big day had finally come. My grandmother was beside herself; her baby boy was finally getting his degree. She was throwing a big party at her brother’s restaurant on the docks in Manhattan. We were all pretty excited too. It’s not often a family of eight got to eat in a real restaurant in those days. 

As we drove from Pennsylvania to New York in our old aquamarine station wagon, my father and I envisioned the coming feast. My father was hoping for his favorite, flounder, while I was pulling for chicken. But we both agreed on one very special treat we were hoping for – shrimp cocktail.  I loved shrimp cocktail and almost never got it. My father, who’d had it more often than I, loved it too and we were both sure that a big fancy meal like this would definitely have shrimp cocktail.

We were drooling over our imagined feast when steam began pouring from the engine. The old blue station wagon coughed and stopped dead on the turnpike in the middle of New Jersey. We all considered New Jersey a God-forsaken wilderness consisting of nothing but turnpike and rest stops and here we were stuck there on a hot June day -- one hour short of the biggest party of our lives. 

We piled out while my father lifted the hood. While my mother dealt with fretting children and my father tried to figure out what was wrong, I wailed and moaned about the certain loss of the phantom shrimp cocktail. We were starting to sweat when I heard a car slowing down. I looked over the hood and saw a long black Cadillac driving on the shoulder of the road. 

“Dad,” I said, “Uh, Dad, someone’s coming.”  Both doors opened simultaneously and two men started to get out. They got out and got out and got out. These were big guys dressed in black and striding with a very business-like air toward our stranded vehicle.

“Dad!” I said. “Someone’s coming!” My father pulled his head from under the hood and said, “Frank, what are you doing here?” One of my father’s co-workers had recognized the old blue car and stopped to help.

Half an hour later, we were on our way. We were now about an hour late and when we arrived, a river of relatives rolled out of the restaurant with my grandmother in the lead. 

“What happened?” They demanded. They had jumped to the logical conclusion that we had all perished in a fiery crash. Half the women were sobbing and the other half were swatting at my father for worrying his mother.  I was worried that they had started without me and that I had missed the shrimp cocktail.

We rode the wave of family back inside and settled into our seats, my parents at the head table and the rest of us at the kid’s table. We sat down and immediately bowed our heads for grace. I prayed for shrimp cocktail.

We lifted our heads and I looked at my plate. There it was – a fruit cocktail. 

Someone had decided that the adults would have shrimp cocktail and the children would have fruit cocktail.  I was devastated; but before I could even moan, I felt a tap on my shoulder. 

I looked up and saw a black-coated waiter with a white linen napkin draped over his arm. He held a silver tray. The waiter said, “Your father sent you his cocktail.” He placed the tray in front of me and walked away. 

That’s when I saw it – love on a silver platter. 

It’s not often that you get love served to you on a silver platter. Many years later, I still taste that love.  

In loving memory of Michael Joseph Scotto June 25, 1931 - Jan. 13, 2014