This is Gordon...

This is Gordon, we saw each other on the way home from the grocery store today. A few years ago when I was still working as a chef Gordon was one of our dish washers. He’s since retired. I see Gordon once or twice a year as we live sort of close by, and what is interesting is when we see each other the conversation picks up as if it is still 2014. Gordon lives in public housing and if anyone should be eligible for this he should. He’s an Army veteran from the Vietnam era and was a hard worker when we worked together; he was usually in the kitchen before me in the morning. I noticed that one of the lenses to his glasses were missing and said something and he replied, “Yea, whatever,” then went back to talking about something that happened years ago. Never one to mince words, when I asked him if he would like a gift card to a local restaurant (which people have recently gifted me for the specific purpose of giving away), he looked away and said, “Naw, I don’t want that crap.” I commented that he looks like he lost weight and he said he has, he also mentioned that last year he had triple bypass surgery. Gordon is 68 years old. In the early-to-mid 2000s if you ate at a certain private city club in Buffalo, after you finished eating delicious food off fancy china in the beautiful dining room, Gordon scraped and washed your plate.