Kevin L. Maynard

2/17/24 – Remembering Max

The Restaurant: The Purple Onion
This week Dad and I took a little drive to Annawan, IL to eat at The Purple Onion, a diner that I have driven past hundreds of times while heading to see family. It is a diner that I had also always wanted to try, but since it is about 40 minutes from where I live, I always forget about it.

The diner itself is really what you would expect from the outside. It is filled with memorabilia from farms and framed newspaper articles from its 30+ year history. It’s a great atmosphere. While we were there it was filled with friends (primarily older men) drinking coffee and families having breakfast with more entering with the after church crowd.

Not only was it St. Patrick’s Day, it was also the owner’s birthday. Since it is a small town, and small town diners are all about family, a customer, who is clearly a regular, announced to the whole place that is was Janet’s birthday and proceeded to lead everyone in a round of Happy Birthday. While the customers sang, what may have been the most off-tune rendition of Happy Birthday, I may have ever heard, it was a really touching moment. Janet was both shy and grateful, and you could feel the love.

The Food: The P.O. Pile
One thing I have learned from the many weeks of having breakfast with Dad is that we have very similiar tastes in food. In fact, our first Sunday breakfast, he ordered the exact meal I was about to order. This week, we ordered the same thing again. We both had the P.O. Pile. which is two biscuits, sausage gravy, american fries, and two eggs. It was also served with something I had not seen in a long time, an orage slice and a sprig of parsley.

The parsley led be down a rabbit hole trying to figure out why this practice started and also why it ended. The best information I could find is that the practice really took off in the 1970’s, and is a predominately an American practice. It was started to add color to monochromatic plates, because parsley is cheap and could be used to freshen your breathe after a meal. As to why it is more rarely seen now, that I could not find.

Overall, Dad and I felt the same about dish. Together it worked, but seperately it lacked flavor. The biscuits were dry, the sausage grazy was bland, but the eggs were great! The American fries were good too, but we both prefer hashbrowns, which were not an option. It was middle of the road diner food.

Talking about food for the first time in a blog post that someone might actually read someday, makes me realize that I really am “Midwest Nice.” I feel some guilt saying the food was bland and middle of the road, becuase someone who know the Purple Onion, might see it, which is a little silly. This is of course, my opinion and I am not a food critic. I like what I like.

The Conversation*
This was our first breakfast in two weeks. We took the last Sunday off, and not for a fun reason. Last week, my parents had to put their dog of 8 (maybe 9) years to sleep. Max, was a Great Dane, and on Saturday night, his back legs stopped working, after a visit to the vet, Max was given a muscle relaxer to see if it would help him gian feeling back in his legs, and unfortunately it did not. I cannot remember the exact details, but I believe he had a slipped disc, and due to his age, his lack of feeling in his back legs, the vet recommended they do the unthinkable. So that Sunday, I drove to my parents house, brought Max a breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s (something my father used to do for him), loaded Max into the car and took him and my parents to the vet to say goodbye. This is always a sad process, but it was even harder watching my parents go through it. They loved that dog, and my Dad even remarked how it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t fix him, because Max was their to take care of him after his stroke. It was heartbreaking.

Being one week out from that, while we drove to Annawan, we had to drive right past their vet. I could feel my father thinking, so I asked him how he was doing.

My father answered, “It’s really hard,” while holding back tears. I don’t see my dad cry often, so when it happens it is tough to see.

Most of the conversation this week centered around hearing. Dad is hard of hearing, and as you would expect, as he has gotten older it has gotten worse. Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about what life is like for him. Hearing is a central part of our lives and something I have taken for granted. In the past, he had talked about the idea of cochlear implants, but I had not heard anything about that in awhile.

Me: Have you thought more about cochlear impants?
Dad: Not really, I would like to talk to someone who has them because I have read it can sound robotic, and I don’t know if that is better than what I have now. My bigger concern is there is a chance that it won’t work, and then I will not be able to hear anything. “Being completely deaf wouldn’t be that bad”

That last sentence was something I had never heard my dad say. Something I would have never thought he would think. While thinking back, I wonder if this is him coming to terms with that as a possibility or if that is actually how he feels. I know he has tinnitus, so I wonder if maybe the thought of that noise going away would be nice.

Me: When did you start losing your hearing?
Dad: It really started over 30 years ago and shortly after Kelly (my sister) was born, I got hearing aids, but back then they were bigger and had to be “waxed into your ear” and it amplified EVERYTHING.

Eventually he stopped using them, and didn’t get a set of hearing aids that really worked for him until about 15 years ago. I remember this, becuase on my first visit home from college when he got them, after about 5 minutes of conversation my father asked, “why are you yelling at me?” Which then I explained to him, this is how I have always talked to you before those new hearing aids.

Me: Do you know why you started to lose your hearing?
Dad: Years of loud environments without ear protection. I worked in the machine shop with my dad, and he never wore earplugs, so I didn’t either. I went to concerts in small bars and back in those days there would be speakers stacked to the ceiling and I would be right next to them, again with no ear plugs. I was in the Army and the National Guard, firing weapons and discharging explosives, and rarely wore ear protection.

We ended the hearing conversation agreeing that I would take him to see a doctor who does cochlear implants, just to get a consultation. I found one, but I am also going to have him see another audiologist, just for a second opinion.

What I learned in this conversation is that not hearing is tough, but he actually does hear more than some people think. It’s the environments he is in that sometimes ruin that. Hearing aids have some ability to focus his hearing now, but they still amplify everything. I don’t think he will be a good candidate for cochlear implants now that I have talked more with him and read more on the topic, but I do want to go have that conversation becuase … I’m not a doctor and Google isn’t either.

We also discussed him getting a membership to a gym. From the sounds of it, but dad wants to work on his mobility and make sure that as he gets older he can still get around. Basically, he wants to take care of himself, and I love that.

Some weeks at breakfast, we talk a lot, and this was one of those weeks. We don’t continue to do it for the food. Biscuits and gravy is just the excuse we use.

*Unless in quotes, these conversations are summaries or the best I can recall at the time of writing.