Road Moms     Thomas Turman   © Copyright 2025 by Thomas Turman

Photo by Ramiro Pianarosa at Unsplash.

Instead of working in the glorious and romantic aircraft industry, my dad now traveled the mid-west selling automotive testing equipment. During the summer between my seventh and eighth grades, I would get in our ’39 Chevy with my dad and make the rounds of car dealers and auto garages in an endless trail of small but sturdy towns. The beginning of the sales day always started with a breakfast in the one local diner on main street. This is where I introduced to my Road Moms, the lovely, open women who ran these cafes. The always treated me like the 12-year-old they probably had at home. Here are some examples of my Road Moms…

It’s 7:15 in Filer, Kansas when the tiny bell at the door lets us all know that another hulking, sweaty man has come in for his breakfast. The newcomer, in a K.C. baseball hat, takes the last stool at the Formica counter holding it down with his forearms, hands clasped, waiting.

“Brad,” the dark hatted man next to him offers as greeting.

“Tim,” is the response.

“Brad,” from the huge guy on my left at the counter.

“Arnell.”

This minimal exchange by old friends is the scene my dad and I have witnessed all throughout dad’s sales territory from New Mexico to Wyoming. These guys don’t waste words if they can help it. I know enough to remain silent and learn.

My dad is to my right. I’m 12 traveling with my dad to sell the new car diagnostic equipment, called a Dynamometer, to auto shops and car dealers. We make the ‘swing’ through his territory every two weeks.

The five of us make up the ‘morning rush’ at Dora’s Diner.

The waitress, whose name tag perched on her left breast of her ill-fitting uniform dress reads Dora, plates Brad’s breakfast, and slides it in front of him.

Arnell swivels to look down at me with a front-tooth-missing grin. He then fills the small silent room with, “Dora, give the kid here one of those great cinnamon rolls.” He looks over at dad for his approval, gets an OK-nod and elbows me winking like we just made a good deal. The elbow almost knocks me off my backless stool. I’m too shy to know what to say.

Dora, the waitress and cook, gets a small stool from under the counter to climb up to get my roll from a high shelf showing her prominent rear end. Arnell elbows me again, smiling, announcing to all of us, “Great sweet bun and a show of buns all in one.” Another tooth-missing grin.

Brad and Arnell are laughing until Dora slides the roll in front of me. “Here sweetie. If you wait for a minute, I’ll heat it up for you. What’s your name?”

“Tom,” I answer in this morning’s short conversation style.

Without saying a another word, she stabs what is left of Arnell’s steak with a short blade knife holding the meat up in the air right in front of his face. She then whacks Arnell hard on his left shoulder with a closed fist. “Don’t you mess with me Arnell Parson. I’ve got sharp knives over here and I’m not afraid to use ‘em.” I look down the row of men to see that Tim and Brad are quickly and silently staring intently down at their plates.

“Don’t you worry Dora you know that we all know you have the best buns in the county.” Arnell is having a good time.

Dora is not.

Dora swivels and tosses Arnell’s steak in the trash barrel next to her grill. She is not smiling.

The complete silence dad and I felt earlier when we came into Dora’s Diner has been made as heavy as a wet blanket draped over all of us. I’m scared but fascinated to see what happens next.

“Oh, come on Dora…” Brad begins, but before he can finish Dora is right in front of him with the blade of her knife up under the bill of his K.C. baseball cap. She flicks the cap onto the floor behind him and turns to Tim sitting next to him stabbing the small knife down next to Tim’s plate just missing his left thumb.

“Anything from you Tim Barns?”

Tim, staring down at his plate, shakes his head no.

“I didn’t think so. You’ve always been the civilized one of this motley crew. Even in school, you were better’n these two lunks.”

Quick as a flash, Dora was back in front of me, “How about I heat up this roll? They’re better warm, ‘ya know.”

I nod yes. She whisks the roll away then brings it back warm.

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

“You three hear that. A real polite gentleman.” She reaches over and grabs my wrist and says, “Tom here can come in here anytime and eat for free.” She then slid her hand down the counter in front of each of her longtime friends whispering, “You three can get the hell out of here. Go back to work.”

The three men slid backward off their stools and shuffle toward the door.

“See you at 5:00 for dinner, Dora.”

*****

The summer just before I turned 14, my parents separated for a short time. Mother, my one-year-old brother and three-year-old sister and I drove to Santa Monica to do her part of whatever separating people do. We lived in a motel right on the beach. Good memories for me as I’d grown up around there going to the beach regularly.

Mom would send me down to the café connected to the motel in the morning where I got to know the young waitresses who ran the place like their own club. It was wonderful to watch them swish and swivel around and through the tables full of diners like ballerinas wearing different colored dresses. They wondered why I was down there alone. I couldn’t tell them. So, they treated me to all kinds of breakfast things I’d never had. French Toast for instance. Terrific stuff with different flavored syrups! It even came covered with powdered sugar.

I was their charge because mom had told me to ‘take your time’ when I went off to see my colorful ladies of the café. The colorful ladies quickly noticed that a sports car came to the parking lot when I was having my breakfast.

My colorful ladies formed into an ice brigade to freeze mom if she ever came into the café with me. I was hurt by this severe change. They would even take me out of the booth chosen by mom and sit me at the counter so they could treat me like a prince.

They were trying to show my real mom how they were acting as rent-a-moms in her absence leaving her to thaw in silence.

*****

In a Wyoming town of several two-story building along Main Street, dad and I often had breakfast in the café/bar that drew the townies and area farmers. We were the ‘newcomers’ and treated as such for the first day. Dad then had made friends at the local Ford/Farmall dealership and we were allowed in the local’s group.

Katty, as her nametag said, took a liking to me and would rush across the room to say hello when we came in. Ignoring my dad, she would put her arm around me, squishing me into her big breasts and shout, “What’ll it be kid?” like she did to all the others who ordered meals or drinks from her. I could do no wrong. I got the best meals of that trip from my Road Mom, Katty.

Unusual to me was the bank of slot-machines along the wall opposite the bar. I didn’t know it was legal in Wyoming. Men and women sat on stools feeding coins into these things, yanking down the handle on the right and waiting for the dials to stop whizzing around.

Dad had told me about gambling when we traveled through Nevada, so I didn’t want anything to do with losing money to a machine.

We got our fancy lunch which I was struggling to finish when Katty slipped up to our table and said, “Want to play the slots, kid?” Dad was silent leaving the decision to me.

“No thanks.”

“Oh, come on. It’s fun. You’ll see.” She grabbed my by the hand and led me over to a huge, black cowboy-hat-guy perched on a stool in front of a whirring machine.

“Buck, let the kid play. Give him some nickels.”

What Katty says goes! Buck opened his dirty hand full of nickels. Katty grabbed some and led me to the machine next to Buck’s. She put the first coin in the slot and pulled the handle. Nothing happened. She proceeded to feed the rest of her nickels into the thing and got nothing. I just stood there watching. She hauled me down the line of players to a guy on the end.

“Tanny, give the kid one of your coins and let him play your machine.”

Tanny didn’t flinch. He just swung around and handed me a silver dollar. The big coin was my first dollar coin. It was heavy. I wanted to keep it.

“Go ahead. Stick it in there. You could win ten dollars.”

I was frozen. I couldn’t move. I closed my fingers on the dollar, said, “Maybe after lunch”. I ran back to our table.

Katty came over bent down and whispered, “Great choice, kid. Where the hell have you been all my life?”

I still have that silver dollar in a dresser drawer.