Disrupting a routine can lead to unexpected joy

We all have our routines. Since we retired, my wife, Iris, and I have made our favorite diner our preferred destination. For years, we’ve traveled along the often-congested Route 347 from our home in Mount Sinai to partake of the luncheon menu.

Friday is the day we selected to be our lunch date, a time to catch up for the week. Jerry has always been our waiter, and he would fill our coffee cups to the brim while Iris and I chatted about anything we might have missed out on during our busy week. Married for 54 years, we haven’t run out of things to talk about.

On a recent Friday, we discussed the possibility of changing things and disrupting the routine we always took after filling our stomachs at the Hauppauge Palace Diner. We ordinarily would follow our lunch with shopping imperatives — Macy’s purchases and returns, food shopping or stores to find bargains.

This day, we decided to forgo the small shopping trips and consider the possibility of purchasing a new car. Our red Cadillac XT5 SUV was almost half a decade old. It seems we have a 5-year itch about cars although ours had only 24,000 miles. We weren’t determined to buy one now, but the idea of change has a way of detouring one from sameness. We decided to check out three local dealerships. Our thinking was that we’d look at hybrids, desiring to save money as fuel prices rose.

We already had been driving the Cadillac, and we explored Hyundai and Lexus, but they didn’t have 2023 models or offer the trade-in value we sought. But sometimes the past reaches out and grabs you in a way that alters your thinking. Another Cadillac? Hmm.

So we returned to the same dealership where we purchased our SUV five years earlier. We met “Cadillac Mike” and began discussing hybrid SUVs only to learn that Cadillac no longer makes hybrids, only electric cars and gas-powered vehicles. I was ready to leave the Cadillac showroom, but my wife gave me “the look.” I settled down and listened to Cadillac Mike weave his web of talk. He was not a hard-sell salesman. We just talked and then hit upon high school.

I asked where he went to high school, and he said that he graduated from Farmingdale High School. My wife and I looked at each other, and I said, “I did as well. When did you graduate?”

Mike was a bit younger than I. He graduated in 1981, and I told him my year was 1964.

Then the magic of the past occurred when he said his favorite instructor was an English teacher, Bill Cates. My heart skipped a beat, and I averred that Cates was my favorite English teacher, too. He taught me for three years. My wife, who grew up in North Bellmore, quietly listened as we unwound the magic of Cates.

We gleefully reminisced about Cates’ diminutive height, the bow tie he always wore, and the poems we had to memorize over the weekend and recite every Monday morning. Mike broke into a recitation of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” prologue, and I joined in.

Cates, who always inspired his students, reached out to me from the past, and Cadillac Mike and I made a deal on a new, gray XT5 SUV. Our usual Friday indeed strayed from our routine. For the better. 

 Reader Sy Roth lives in Mount Sinai.