Will The Grill

I've lived most of my life in Holland, Michigan, a nice little Mid Western burg where pristine waters lap against white, sandy beaches and tulips bloom in May.  I've been to New York City just once, took a memorable taxi ride across some famous bridge, glanced at the teeming masses, and then bid it a fond adieu.

When I was 17 I headed out via train to an Outward Bound camp in Colorado.  It was on that train that I met Juan, a Puerto Rican kid from New York who was heading to the same camp.  I was going by choice.  Juan was being sent.  I later found out after arriving that a good portion of the campers were actually, how shall I say it, juvenile delinquents who authorities had given a chance to be toughen up by 14,000 foot mountains.

What a shock.  My parents were happily married.  The only argument I had ever heard between them was one time with my dad and mom at dinner, beginning with my dad.  "Eat your peas.  I don't want to eat my peas.  You better eat your peas or you'll get sick.  I'm NOT going to eat my peas!"   I thought this was pretty normal.  I didn't even know anyone else whose parents were divorced.

Then at Outward Bound there were statements like this from a pretty big guy:  "If I ever see my dad hit my mom again I'm going to take a base ball bat and beat the crap out of him."   Needless to say, when our group would get lost on a ten mile hike and two type A junies were arguing over how to read the compass I would from the background politely suggest that maybe we should try Pete's way first and then give Nick's plan a go.  Lucky for me Pete was a much better navigator than Nick.

Juan was not in our group at camp but while on the train, like a normal 17 year old, he wanted to talk music.  He would ask me if I had heard this Latino sounding group or that Latino sounding group, on and on, all apparently very popular in New York.  "Um, no.  I do like, you know, groups like The Beetles," trying to sound cool.  "Who?"  Ah, the chasim is wide and deep tween urban city East and Mid West.

This week a very big and imposing black dude comes in for a road test.  William has recently moved to Grand Rapids from New York.  I asked him what he does for work and he tells me he has a clothing store downtown.  "What kind of work did you do in New York?"  William tells me that he sold gold grill work.  I had no idea what he was talking about so he tells me that he sold gold teeth and gold caps which could cover the entire top and bottom of your teeth with 24 caret gold.

"Are you a dentist?" I naively ask.  "No man!  I take a powder and make impressions of their teeth.  I send the impressions to my father who melts the gold, does the work, and then sends them back to me.  In New York they call me Will The Grill."

This is totally a different world than I'm use to.  I imagine if one of my brother in laws showed up one day to a family gathering sporting a new, beautiful gold grill, that the rest of the brother in laws would play rock, paper, scissors to see who would get to file the papers to have him committed.

"Did you make pretty good money at that?" I inquired of Will.

"I did until, well, you know, the economy."

"How is your clothing store doing?"

"Well, you know, the economy."

New York, Grand Rapids.  I guess some things are the same everywhere.