One of my favorite restaurants is Bagger Dave’s in East Lansing, probably because the fries are warm and soft, and they will put an egg on your hamburger.  I am not sure where Dave got his bagger experience, but mine was at Meijer.

I was at the store in Okemos for a couple of months, waiting for the summer Married Housing crew to get started.  It was my first union job.  Baggers could not work any more than 40 hours in a week – no overtime.  Baggers were part time.  Baggers couldn’t work 40 hours for more than four weeks in a row, because then they would become full time.

Regardless of all the rules, I had a great first week – nights, forty hours – changing all the fluorescent light bulbs in the store.  This was before the Open 24 Hours store policy, so we would wheel the scaffolding systematically through the aisles all night long. The best part was throwing the old bulbs in the dumpster and watching them explode.  Clearly, our environmental savvy was not high. 

There were several other cool tasks involved.  Getting outside to collect and pull in the carts was refreshing in the spring.  June bugs had to be cleaned off the doors early in the morning where they had piled up overnight.  And when someone dropped a jar of pickles or mayonnaise , the call went out for “service on lane 12” to clean up the mess.

There were no UPC codes, scanners, or computers.  The cashiers had to find the price tag and enter the amount by pushing buttons on the cash register.  Then they threw the item down the lane for the Bagger to “bag.” There was no plastic and no one brought their own cute recyclable bags – everybody got bagged in paper.  Some baggers were quick and talented enough to handle two check-out lanes at a time; you had to respect the devotion and dexterity but it still didn’t help them become a full-time employee.

Sometimes you never quite see the angels that visit.  In late 1981, after recovering sufficiently from Guillain-Barré Syndrome to get off the respirator, I was transferred from ICU to the Neurology ward where I spent three weeks in physical and occupational therapy to recover some lost skills.  I needed to re-learn how to crawl, button a shirt (there are multiple reasons why those hospital gowns only have ties, not buttons), use a straw, write, etc. 

Unfortunately, the air in the hospital was very dry and I had contracted some sort of sinus thing that blocked off my nasal passages.  I hate to breathe through my mouth when falling asleep – I wake up with a sore throat; my mouth gets all dried up; it is just very uncomfortable.  The hospital theoretically provided all the water you wanted; the orderlies would bring it around in big Styrofoam cups with lids and a straw.  The cup would be placed on the long thin adjustable and moveable table where meals were also served.  For a recovering paralytic, if you were propped up in bed on enough pillows and could support your left arm well enough with your right arm, you could reach that cup and get yourself a drink.  But several conditions could thwart thirst-quenching: table too far away, arm not supported, lid not on tight.

It was very hard to sleep that first week back in the ward.  Waking up and needing a drink, pushing the bell to call a nurse, waiting for help, taking a drink, sitting up briefly to clear the sinuses, and then falling fitfully back asleep. 

One night I got some help.  My bed was several feet away from the wall with the window.  The meal / water table was usually parked on that side with the wheels underneath the bed.  There was one of those wide wood frame arm chairs with the big plastic-ish cushiony seat and the back support tilted just a bit too much, in the corner by the head of the bed.   Sometimes visitors would sit there, but usually they stood or sat in the chair on the other side of the bed, nearer to the door.

On this particular night, each time I awoke with a parched throat, a visitor was sitting in the chair by the window.   Before I could get completely awake, my friend would simply say, “Allan, take a drink.”  The table was in the right place, the cup was reachable, I would get a drink and fall back asleep.  The assisting person was wearing a dark brown hoody and had his face covered; I figured at the time it must be some orderly or nurse assigned to keep me comfortably hydrated.  I was certainly appreciative but don’t know that I ever said thank you.

The visitor had left by morning.  I asked the nurses and orderlies who the guy in the brown hoody was, and they all said they did not see anyone.  I thought it odd that Diane or one of my friends would have come in at night, since visitor hours ended at 8pm.  None of my regular callers had a clue about the identity of the stranger; most suspected he was an angel assigned to my room for the night.  Good for me!