The midnight lunch wagon: coffee, pies, and boiled eggs at 2 a.m.

wheel was being repaired, and after to put no one on and new lugs and whatnot, here comes a Jeep, kind of like one of those one of those enclosed things, you know, that look like a truck, covered truck or something.

And he stopped right by the bus, and he jumped out, and he opened the back doors. There's two doors opened up, like, you know, like, and pulled some kind of a spring, and out comes kind of like a table, or I would say about three feet wide in the width of the Jeep.

And inside of that Jeep, inside of that van, was all kinds of shelves, and they were loaded with all kinds of things to eat. And on one side of that cheap, right by the door, he had a coffee urn with hot coffee.

On the other side, he had chicken noodle soup in the urn, and you could buy anything you wanted. There were sandwiches wrapped of different kinds of meats, and they had pies, all kinds of pies. He had about 20 pies or more pieces, I mean, quarters of a pie.

And he had a whole big kettle full of boiled, hard -boiled eggs and salt shakers. Well, so people start crowding out. We were bored staying there, you know. So we all started buying. One bought a pie and coffee, another one bought a bowl of soup.

And first thing, you know, he didn't know who to serve first, this man. and so it went on by gully he ran out of coffee and then everybody else got some more soup just 10 cents a bowl and three crackers wrapped up separately and everything and so it went on and oh and then the pies went like hotcakes and then a well -to -do look like a well -to -do man he was dressed just beautifully older man maybe 55 60 and he said And give them each one of them on eggs so you don't have to drag the doggone eggs back.

This was ready 2 .30 in the morning, see? So he started dishing out the eggs and counting him, and this man put his hand in the pocket and give him a 10 spot and says, is that enough? Oh, he says, yes, more than enough.

He says, I'll give you a change. Oh, no, he says, just wait until we eat the eggs. And like I said, we have to the coffee bottom and the soup already and the sandwiches are all gone. and, well, there was 40, 40, 45 maybe people there, and everybody bought something, see.

So we was having a ball, everybody laughed, and everybody joked, you know. Then there was about eight, nine pieces of different kind of pies left, see. And he says, you ain't going to drag that back home. He said, put the pies out on their table and let anybody who still got little place in the tummy take up piece.

I'll pay for it, so he paid for it. And I got a piece of apple pie. I didn't intend to buy one, but I got it. And he just pick it off that little table that was pulled out and hand it to people, stay wondering or not.

He just was handing him to him. So we don't. Well, when we got on eating, this hefty man, he says, well, do you need such a big hurry, are you? He says, why don't you talk to us a little bit?

We're just bored. He says, he's getting towards morning. and we're not moving yet. Well, they ask him how he happened to think of all this. Well, he says, I was in the army and while I was in France, I seen this stuff being brought in by the, you know, kind of like an oblongish buggy with one horse and this man had all kinds of things, soup, you know, and coffee and different things and different breads.

He cut the bread up there, this in France, like, in some kind of a town. And this soldier boy, he watched him do it, you know, and pocketing the money and everything. So he said, well, that's kind of a fairly good trade, you know.

But then he figured he'll go into shop, working in a shop like he used to before he went to the army. And when he got back, he couldn't get the job he liked that he had before. So he took his money that he had, what they call it, master out pay or something.

and he had few bonds saved up while he was in the army. So put it all together and borrowed three or four hundred and bought this here Jeep business and decked it out with these shelves inside, put them together, you know, good, and attached the shelves to the side of this here van.

And he says, I was in business. And he says, it's pretty good because he says, this is my third van. When the van is about two years old, I'd get a better one. you know, and deck it out and all that.

And he says, I've got about seven factories where I go from 11 o 'clock till one, which he visits at certain factories, and the workers where they get their 15 -minute coffee break there, he knows really what they really want and that, and he says, it goes like clockwork.

And then I go and fill up again, and then I go along, and if there's something like this happens, you know I see you're stuck here and that's why I offer my coffee and that's how it goes but he says I make it pretty nice now I'm not getting rich or nothing but I've got family of two kids already and a wife and and I manage he says the rent and clothing and the food for the children so I'm doing okay says I'm glad of that at least I got some kind of a job for sure see we were kind of pleased about the whole

thing and then first thing you know the bus driver says all aboard he says he says were grown in a few minutes, and so we all piled in and where we went.