A lesson carried from the cafeteria serving line to Loop street corners

On a couple of occasions I have mentioned working in the dining hall while in college. I've mentioned my work cleaning dishes and, later, during law school, as the weekend security guard.

There was one other task I performed in the dining hall. Though I did it only once or twice, it left a lasting impression. On these occasions, I was asked to be a server.

A server was a person who stood behind the counter and scooped out quantities of whatever item the student requested. At the colleges my kids have attended, I've noticed that there aren't very many servers any more. There's usually someone grilling hamburgers or handing out pizza -- but the kids now obtain most items on their own. There are islands of items set out in the center of a large serving area. In bigger schools there are so many serving islands, it can be almost a maze.

So some of you may not have a clear picture of how our school cafeteria was arranged. There was a single serving line. There were stainless steel rails on which one could set a tray and slide it along while selecting items. A kid didn't double back (unless he had a cast-iron stomach and was looking for seconds). There may have been a separate salad area -- but I doubt it. I remember clearly that the industrial-strength white bread and the oiliest peanut butter anyone has ever seen was at the end of the line. I often used the white bread to disguise whatever entree I was eating. Though I still eat peanut butter, nearly every single day, I hardly ever touched the approximation that was offered in our school cafeteria.

Most of the regular servers were non-English speakers -- Greek, I thought, and Eastern European. Kids pointed; servers doled out the glop.

At the time I was asked to fill in for one of the servers I was fairly well known at my school. I wrote for the school paper and was a member, to varying degrees of involvement, in most of the student organizations. Ours was a relatively small school and the resident population was a small percentage of the total enrollment. This was the only resident dining hall and, one way or another, I knew most of the residents. I may not have known everyone's name, but I had at least a nodding acquaintance with the vast majority.

Still... when I put on the uniform of a server, including the funny-looking paper hat, I became... invisible.

Maybe it didn't bother me at first, not right away. I don't remember why I was filling in or whether it was a weekday or a weekend but I'm certain I was happy to get that $1.75 an hour or whatever princely sum was offered for this service.

But, after awhile, it began to grate on me. People -- people I knew -- were merely pointing at trays and waiting for me to ladle out the item selected. Point, scoop, plop. Perhaps a grunt or two was made. But there was no flash of recognition -- no acknowledgment, even, that the person passing out the chow -- me! -- was anything more than an automaton.

Increasingly irritated, I began to greet people by name. There was a visible, and painful, delay, while the person greeted processed the hearing of his or her name, looked up to see where the noise had come from, and eventually figured out that someone that he or she knew was speaking. An embarrassed flush would follow and perhaps a stammered acknowledgment. But if I said nothing, no one said anything to me. Point, scoop, plop. Point, scoop, plop.

I hated this.

And I learned a valuable lesson. I never again merely pointed and grunted when I was on the other side of the line. I made eye contact. I said hello or good evening or howyadoin'. I would get a smile in return, a nod, a hello. This was good. I'd also get bigger portions. This was often a mixed blessing.

Now we move up to the present day. Anyone who has been to Chicago's Loop knows there are often beggars on every corner. In the warmer weather, there are often beggars in the middle of the block, too. There are also StreetWise vendors -- not beggars, these are persons who may be homeless, but who are selling the magazine as their job.

In the Bible we are told that, at the end of days, Jesus will come back and separate people into two categories, saved and condemned, the sheep from the goats. The sheep will be saved because, when Jesus was hungry, they gave Him food to eat; when He was thirsty, they gave Him drink; when He was naked, they clothed Him. The goats will be confused. He will tell them that they denied Him food when He was hungry, drink when He was thirsty, clothes when He had nothing to wear. The goats will cry out -- when did we see You hungry or thirsty and fail to give You food or drink? And Jesus will tell them that whatever you did for the least of My brothers, that was what you did, or didn't do, for Me.

If that's really the way to get into heaven, it is a frightening thought. Because I can't buy a magazine from everyone, and I can't (and wouldn't) give money to every bum on the street. (Many times you know that any money provided would just go for booze or possibly drugs.) But there is something I can do. I hope it's enough.

I can say hello. I can make eye contact. I can say 'not today, thanks' to the StreetWise vendor. There are bums that are pushy. If you make eye contact with such people, some of them will follow you to your destination and berate you along the way. I quickly learn not to say hello to them. But there are regulars on some corners I pass by every day. We greet one another now. I don't have spare cash to dole out but it does not matter. Or at least it does not matter much. Because people appreciate being treated as people -- and not as though they were invisible, as I was, back in the serving line in college.