My wonderful, supportive wife never really felt comfortable in Cleveland.

After I left her and the babies isolated in a motel for the first two weeks of our time there while I worked long hours, Judy never quite got over that feeling of being abandoned in Cleveland.

After we settled in, particularly after we bought our first house about 18 months after we got to Cleveland, things should have been better. But I was working long hours, mostly nights and weekends, and leaving her to take care of two kids under the age of five.

I was home during the day, so we did our errands and spent time together while the other mothers in the neighborhood were out with their kids. Then I left for work just about the time everyone else was going in to prepare dinner and get their kids ready for bed. So she never got close with any of the neighbors.

Judy was a trooper, though, and tried hard to deal with the situation. But she couldn't help but be frustrated and lonely at times.

We talked about it and decided she should get out of the house at least one night a week. As Judy said, "I wanted to do something that was just me."

First, she tried to go to the library one night a week. But the sitters we got were kids who often were unavailable or had a change of plans and Judy would just say, "The heck with it. I'll stay home."

Then, we got a dependable older sitter and Judy took a crochet class and a scuba class.

In crochet, she found her stitches were often too tight and, when she made a mistake, which was often, it was very difficult to rip out those stitches.

In scuba, she easily passed the written exam, but nearly drowned one night when she made a mistake with the breathing apparatus and found herself lying on the bottom of the pool, held down by a weight belt. The instructor brought her up, gasping for breath and dazed and that was the end of scuba classes.

The only good to come out of that near-death experience was that her crochet stitches were suddenly big and easy to rip out as she felt much more relaxed in class.

Finally, Judy decided a part-time job might be the answer.

There was a small Manners Big Boy restaurant at the end of our street. Judy was fascinated by some of the clientele, which included guys with slicked-back hair driving 50s-style cars and girls with big hair and short skirts.

"I thought it was awfully interesting and I was dying to know who those people were," she said. "So I applied and became a waitress there."

Judy never considered herself a very good waitress, mostly because she has never had a good short-term memory and felt like she messed up too many orders. But the patrons loved her because she always tried very hard and cared about everyone.

I'll let her tell you some of her stories - with a few explanatory interjections from me.

"In those days, if your hair was long, below your ears or down to your shoulders, you had to put it up and wear a bun over it, and a little net over that," Judy said. "We only lived a block from the restaurant and, as I walked home, I swear I worried about dogs coming up and jumping at the bun because it smelled of Manners Big Boy. I pictured a dog lying by the curb, choking on that bun."

The young people who had interested her turned out to be not very interesting and, in fact, were a bit of a pain because they just hung out for long periods in the three-table coffee shop at the restaurant. And, of course, there were no tips.

The main room of the restaurant had 13 tables and there were usually two waitresses working that area. The waitress who drew the coffee shop usually also ran the cash register.

If you got hit by a dinner rush, the manager on duty would often pitch in, helping set up meals on trays and even delivering them to the tables at times. And there were times when there was only one waitress on duty for the main dining room, which could be a problem, especially when there was a big party that pushed tables together.

"There was one manager, a woman who always came in wearing heels and tight-fitting clothes and short skirts and did not much care much about what went on in the rest of the shop," Judy said, "She just stayed up front and you never got any backup from her. And she was highly critical.

"One night, I had a rush going with the tables in the back with a party of 14 and I was trying to get everything together by myself because I was on alone. I set up rolls on a couple of platters, one for each end of the table. But she stopped me, telling me the rules say one roll per meal. She ordered me to put them all on separate plates, and this during a dinner rush when I had that table of 14 plus some other tables. And she did not lift a finger.

"Everyone disliked her, including a waitress who just walked out. This waitress, one of the best that was there, just decided she had enough and walked out during a dinner rush. The tables were numbered  so you could hand in your table slips with numbers on them. This manager had never bothered to memorize which table was which and was left with the dinner rush and no idea what table what went to. It was kind of fun to watch her wandering around asking people what they had ordered.

"She was on duty one night when there was a big winter storm and the floors stayed somewhat slick from everybody walking in through the sleet and snow. I was hurrying to get an order out, wearing my little hefty waitress shoes. She was there in her heels. I was carrying two trays and as I rounded the corner rather quickly, I stepped on a wet patch and slipped. My legs went out from under me, I landed on my backside and skidded.

"I managed to keep hold of both trays, but I skidded straight across, slid under her, upended her and she wound up in my lap as we slid further on the floor. I still had the trays upright and got great applause from the patrons. She said nothing and skittered off as quick as she could go. It was never mentioned."

There were several managers at the Big Boy while Judy worked there. One of them, a young man named Mike, who really pitched in, liked his employees and always stood up for them.

"One day, Mike told me that the district manager was coming to inspect us and he would be giving him to me," Judy said. "So he said, 'Do a good job.' My reply was, 'If he fires me, I just go home and get pregnant again? It makes me no never mind.' Mike replied: 'No, he’s rating me for my people.' That put the pressure on because Mike deserved the best I could give."

When the district manager arrived, he was seated at a small table in Judy's section. She walked quickly up to the table and said, "I’m supposed to say _ because I read the book _ ‘Hi, my name is Judy, I’ll be serving you this evening and the soups of the day are … ‘

"And he said, 'If you know you’re supposed to say all of this, why aren’t you saying it?'

"I said, “Because I know you know all this.” And then I named the soups. And he ordered and he asked for a cup of tea, among other things. While I was waiting for his food to come up, I served one of my other tables, who were regulars, and they wanted the junior sundaes, which were just on the kiddy menu.

"I knew these nice people and I leaned over and whispered to them that the district manager was in and watching and the rules say we can’t give that to adults. Their reply was, 'Tell us what you want us to order.' They wanted to help. I said anything else they’d care to order, as long as it’s on the adult menu. And they did just that.

"I served the gentleman his tea and it came with a hottle, one of the little metal pitchers. When I went past, I asked him a question.

“The book says we’re supposed to serve this with the hottle and the tea bag. But if people want a second cup, the water in the hottle has already gone cold. Wouldn’t it be better to serve a cup's worth and, if they wanted a second cup, they’d ask and you’d get them more hot water?”

"He didn't say much and and the dinner service went well. When he left, Mike came out and said to me, 'Judy, he gave you a ten.' I said, 'Out of how many?'

"It was 10 out of 10 and Mike said he even wrote 'Wow!' That was this particular district manager’s highest form of praise. I was incredibly happy, for me, of course, with pride and all, but mostly because I had done that kind of job for Mike and his shop.

"Meanwhile, we had a cook who was always putting people down and telling everyone how good he was. He had gotten a 9 ½. He’d gotten points taken off for putting too much of something on something. He asked me what I got and looked crushed when I told him. So it was a double victory."

As I've written before, I was born in Cleveland and my parents and a lot of my family had lived there over the years. One of our favorite places to eat was and still is Corky & Lenny's, a traditional Jewish deli on the eastside.

When my family would visit Cleveland from Wisconsin for one of my dad's sales meetings or a family occasion, we'd invariably wind up eating at Corky & Lenny's and usually finding a family member or friend there. My Aunt Anita had even dated Corky briefly in high school, so the connection ran deep.

When we lived there in the 70s, the original Corky & Lenny's restaurant was still open in Warrensville Center, not far form our home. When Judy got tired of the craziness at the Big Boy, it was natural that she would think about getting a job at the deli."

It turned out to be an interesting job for Judy and she turned out to be a bit of a revelation for the people who worked there, and the customers, too.

"I wanted to know what an old Jewish deIi was really like,'' she explained. "And they had something like 26 waitresses and a large number of them on at any one time. I really wanted to see what that was all about. So that was my next step.

"They opened a second location while I was working there, but the Warrensville Center store was the real deal. Corky and Lenny both hung out there. Their wives were there. It was just fun.

"The countermen could be pretty tough. They’d sling the stuff across the counter. The customers could be pretty tough, too, and many of the waitresses had been there forever and they were pretty doggone tough, also.

"The floor manager, Yolie, was rather stern and did not brook any nonsense. One time I put three straws together, reached over her shoulder and sipped out of her soda. She wasn’t pleased, but it gave me great joy.

"There were people there, including some of the management, that when I walked in I’d always give them a bright hello and they’d grunt at me. One of the other waitresses said 'They don’t like to be talked to by the employees' and I smiled and said, 'I know!' That was why I did it.

"There was one night Yolie had to use the restroom. I guess I was the closest waitress at the moment and she asked me to be the hostess for a few minutes and seat people. There was this lovely velvet rope that people would stand behind until they were ushered in. I got menus and walked over to the next people behind the velvet rope and said, “Please follow me.” I looked back and, to my horror, an older couple was trying to climb over the rope. I had forgotten to take it down. Yolie came back at about that time and that was the last time I was ever asked to hostess."

The customers could be difficult at times, but Judy had ways of diffusing difficult situations.

"I hadn't been there very long when I approached an older man sitting at one of my tables. He looked at me with a harsh glare and said, 'I was in here three weeks ago and the corned beef was lousy. And I was in two weeks ago and I order a corned beef and it was lousy. And if you bring me another lousy corned beef sandwich, I’ll throw it back in your face.'

"I looked at the gentleman _ I always called them the woman or the gentleman because you couldn’t get yourself in trouble with a slip _ and said, 'Sir, I just got here. Have I mess up yet?'

"He looked puzzled and said, 'No.' Fortunately for both of us, I had recently attended a seminar from Cleveland's Office on Aging, where I had been volunteering. They talked about in nursing homes or assisted living places, that it’s hard to work the dining hall because you always have to keep in mind that this is the last place that these people have to make any decisions in their lives. So it’s rather important to them _ a matter of respect.

"Thinking about that, I said, 'Tell me what was wrong with your corned beef and give me a shot. Was it too fatty or wasn’t it fatty enough? Too hot or wasn’t it heated properly. Tell me what you need and see if I can get it right for you.'

"The man was an absolute gem after that.

"For the really nasty customers, the ones who were just inherently not pleasant, other waitresses would ask, 'How can you be nice to that person? They come in here and they’re always mean. How do you stay pleasant?'

"And I said, 'I just keep thinking to myself, I don’t have to go home with them.’”

"One of the funnier moments of my time at Corky & Lenny's came one night when it was getting on toward closing time when it was really quiet. A group of nurses, five of them, had just come in from a local hospital and they went to the section directly next to mine.

"They were wearing nurses outfits, which in those days were a jacket, pants and shoes all in white, which was pretty much what we wore. Our waitress outfit was apparently a holdover from the old days when you wore white to show you were sanitary. But we wore a black apron where you kept your note pads and things like that.

"I saw them coming and there was nobody in my section. There was a barrel-top table, a large table with a curved bench around it. Three of them slid onto the bench. I plopped down next to them and kept sliding and two more plopped in next to me. Every one of them turned all of a sudden and looked at me because there I was sitting in the middle.

"About that time, Yolie walked up and her eyes got very large. She said, 'Judy, what are you doing there?'

"I replied, 'I just thought I’d slide in with this bunch of nurses and, when it's time to leave, I’ll slip out and start a promising new career as a nurse.' I’ve got the uniform. I turned to one of the women and said, 'That’s all I need, isn’t it?'

"She turned to me and said, 'Just take off the apron and come with us.'

"I said, 'Take off the apron? Where will I keep my tips?'

"She said, 'You don’t get any tips in nursing.'

"I said, 'Excuse me ladies. I have tables to waitress' and scrambled out. They cracked up and were so pleased that there was really nothing Yolie could do but shake her head."

Judy's penchant for study paid off with one of the funnier moments in her brief career as a waitress.

"One night, I had a gentlemen left over from the previous shift when I arrived to start work," she recalled. "He was at the back of the room that I was setting up and he called me over.

"With an attitude that clearly spoke, 'Hey girly, come here,' he held up a piece of gold jewelry hanging from his neck. 'Do you know what a cartouche ( rhyming with Moochie) is?

"The first thing that came to mind was Scaramouche, which was a novel written by Rafael Sabatini that I read when I was a teenager. Then I looked down and said, 'Oh, yes sir, a cartouche. You’re wearing the cartouche of King Tut, Tutankhamun.'

"He looked startled and said, 'How do you know that?'

"I proceeded to take out a pen, grab a napkin and sketch out the cartouche, or the royal signet name of King Tutankhamun. Fortunately for me I had played around with hieroglyphics the previous summer after seeing the King Tut Exhibit in Chicago. That was the only cartouche I knew, but it happened to be the one he was wearing.

"So I diagrammed how the two half circles are the t sounds, the little bird is the u sound and the word meant image. Up above was the ankh, meaning ever-living. And at the top _ because you always put the gods name on top _ was the amun, with the feather and checker board you play to get over the underworld, and the n sound, which is the river. Tutankhamun!

"He then turned the thing over and said, 'All right then, what does this say?'

"He didn’t even have to turn it over because I knew it. The kings always had their personal name paired with their throne name. I went through that one, too and he was very impressed. He called Lenny over  said, 'Watch what she can do.'

"They had me go over it again. When I was done, Lenny said, 'Have you been to Egypt?' I said, 'No!' He said, 'Well, how do you know this?'

"I said, 'Len, I’m a Jew. I study.' Then I walked off and started setting up tables."

Those were long days for Judy, getting up early with the kids most of the time and then working until 1 a.m.

The day of her first shift at Corky & Lenny's Judy decided she would take a one-hour nap after I left for work. Lanni was still young enough that she napped every day, but Tory was no longer interested in napping

Judy put Lanni down in her bed and told Tory to play quietly while Mama took a much-needed nap before going to work. When the alarm went off, Judy was very proud of Tory, who had not made a sound during the hour.

Then she went downstairs and found out why. The four-year-old had gone outside to play with his friends.

Judy gathered Tory up and told him in no uncertain terms he was not to leave the house during her nap time. So, the next week she was awakened by noise coming from the living room. Tory had invited his friends in.

This time, she told him bluntly, no leaving the house and no friends invited in.

The next week, she put out some books and some paper and crayons and laid down. After 15 minutes, she felt little fingers poking her awake. "Is it an hour yet, Mommy?"

By the fourth week, things fell into place and Judy got her much-needed nap.

The two nights a week that Judy worked as a waitress turned out to be a great pressure release valve, giving her some time away from the kids, something interesting to do and some fun stories to tell. It made our last few years in Cleveland a lot easier for both of us.