Memoir Essay Example

Madden’s Family Restaurant
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It was the beginning of my junior year of high school and I had a job interview scheduled for the first Tuesday in September at a daycare.  However, as a spur of the moment decision, I walked into Madden’s Family Restaurant on Monday to pick up an application.  They offered me an interview for that Friday.  I expected to be a hostess, but when Friday came, they handed me a menu and a list of the restaurant’s policies, and told me to return in one week to be quizzed to become a waitress.  One week later, I was hired and I began waitressing after a week of training.  My job was to greet and seat customers, and wait on them for drinks, meals, and desserts.  Beyond just waiting on people, I also had side work to complete every night to keep the restaurant clean and stocked for the next day.  I hoped that through this job I would learn time management, as well as people skills, and of course the money was helpful in paying for the car I just bought a few months earlier.  I think people underestimate what it takes to be a waitress.  I would come home and share stories with my family and my sister would always say she did not know how I did it.  Although at times I wanted to quit, I can not think of a better first job.

When I was younger, I used to go to Madden’s Family Restaurant for my birthday.  I always got the chicken fingers, waffle fries, and the kitchen sink ice cream sundae.  It was weird for me at first to work there and see what happened beyond the dinning room area.  After walking through two old doors, customers were met by a Christmas tree, which turned into a Valentine’s tree, followed by a Saint Patrick’s tree, and so on.  Mrs. Madden loved the tree and it brought up many interesting discussions with customers.  The top of the walls were lined with baskets and there were always seasonal decorations that gave off the feeling of being in one’s own home.  On weekend mornings, I would walk in and be greeted by the smell of coffee and the breakfast buffet.  I could never figure out what Maddens smelled like because there was no other smell like it.  I would come home and say my clothes and hands smelled like Maddens, which I guess could have been a combination of soap and food.  Sometimes, people in the section closest to the bathroom would ask to move because of the nauseating smell, which occasionally even filled the restaurant and was followed by Mrs. Madden spraying too much Lysol, making the smell even worse.  The restaurant was always crazy and noisy on weekend mornings, but other times were hit or miss.  There would be times where it was just the noise of the employees goofing off because it was a slow night or kids running around on Thursday’s kid’s night.

It was the first Saturday morning this past March, and the restaurant was buzzing with laughter, pagers beeping, and coffee machines trying to keep up with the demand.  It was my last day of vacation and I was so exhausted that my legs were ready to give out at any minute.  Over half of the wait staff had gone on vacation, and through out the week one waitress quit and another became ill.  Working almost the whole week of vacation left me tired and ready to be anywhere but work.  I just had to get through my six hour shift and a quick staff meeting at three and I would finally be done, well, at least until the next week.  When 3:00 p.m. rolled around, the time finally came for the meeting, but I had just received a table.  The meeting was only for the part-time staff, so Lynn, who would take every table if she could, offered to take care of them for me.  I was very thankful, besides, the few dollar tip did not matter to me after working hard all week.

My legs barely carried me down to the section in the far back corner of the restaurant.  I had been down there many times before for kids night, waiting on large parties, and cleaning, but today it seemed different.  Everyone looked around at each other, unsure of what Mr. Madden, the owner of the restaurant, had to tell us.  I figured that he changed something on the menu or a policy and needed to let us know.  He talked  for a little while and then he said these four words that left me unsure of how to react, “We sold the restaurant.”  I knew the Maddens had been trying to sell it, but I had hoped it would not sell until I left for college.  No one was too shocked because we all knew it was going to happen eventually, but the difference between knowing it was a possibility and actually hearing him say it, made it reality.  Someone then asked a question that I had not thought of, “How much longer are we staying open for?”

“If you had not noticed, we have been running low on many things lately and making frequent trips to Shaw’s.  With what we have left, I do not think we may even be able to make it through tomorrow”, replied Mr. Madden.

“Tomorrow?!”, I thought to myself.  It all seemed so quick.

I walked into Madden’s the next day for the last time.  I was greeted by the chatter of customers and other employees that I knew would no longer exist after that day.  The whole moment was filled with bittersweet feelings.  After only a year and half of working there, I had considered my co-workers to be family.  We spent our evenings, weekends, and vacations together.  We all got along and worked together well even though each of us had different sets of friends in school and there were a variety of personalities.  The restaurant’s feeling of home was replaced with emptiness.  The last sound I heard was the click of the lock as Lyndsey and I locked the door forever.

As much as I dreaded working at Madden’s, when the time came to look for a new job, nothing seemed to match up.  It was the perfect first job that taught me work and life skills, especially that things change with time, and even if I do not like it, I will need to adjust my mindset and be open to new things.  The next time I am in town, I will drive by the newly built Starbucks and think of the building that was there before, with all the memories it was home to, both good and bad, but never forgotten

Heroes Cool Hand Luke One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

  It is during our youth that we most need good, healthy adult role models who demonstrate exemplary behavior.  But adults need heroic models as well.  Heroes reveal to us the kinds of qualities we need to be in communion with others, and to act effectively in our milieu. McMurphy in  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Luke in Cool Hand Luke acted as heroes. What qualities did they reveal for the men who were confined with them? Why were these qualities needed? Refer to both stories and cite examples from both.