I was having breakfast the other day with Aunt Leona (Shaffer) and Alyce Massart. Having just finished my short stack of buckwheat
pancakes, I leaned way back in my chair feeling pretty satisfied as the waitress topped off my cup of coffee. That was when Leona produced a
yellowed note from her purse bearing the date November 4, 1977. It was from George Scheid, then editor of the Valley News Dispatch,
the AK-Valley's major newspaper. Leona and Alyce were both in agreement that George's speech was generally mild and conventional,
in great contradiction to his personal writing style, in which he seemed to be able or willing to express himself unbridled. The note below
was written ostensibly as a tribute to the Massart's crew upon reaching 30 years of business at their current location. But George's text is so fun
to read, seeming at times as if PT Barnum had penned the words, that you can't help but think he was really writing it to dazzle the girls and amuse
himself. This was a man who enjoyed the company of his small-town breakfast diner and the people that filled his coffee cup, even though they
all probably drove each other crazy at times.
And I guess that's why I like going there too. You see the same faces all the time and they're usually smiling, in spite of the kinds of problems
that life can throw at an old person in an old town. Or a young person for that matter. Massart's Restaurant has to be the closest thing I've
seen to a real-life fountain of youth. Anyway, I got a kick out of this note and I hope you do too. I considered transcribing a copy into Notepad
and then uploading it to this page but ultimately I decided that it's legible enough as it is.
