The waiter at the Beach Chalet asked me if it was my first time here.
"Yes," I said, lying.
"Well then let me tell you something," he said, leaning in excitedly. "Behind those glass walls we brew the best beers in the world. The. Best. Beers. In. The. World. And unlike PBR, we're not going to sell them off to some Russian company."
I hadn't been planning to drink much tonight — maybe a cocktail — but by God he sold me. I ordered a flight.
I am susceptible to really great servers. Whatever their schtick. There was the waiter at the Algonquin who knew what I wanted before I did; the waiter in Verona who took my orders with military crispness; the eternally recurring graveyard shift wait staff at a Rochester diner who were already so beaten down that there's nothing you can possibly do to upset them; and bartenders ... so many great bartenders over the years.
Now there's Beach Chalet guy, who kept me rapt and engaged all night even when he was ignoring me because a massive table was trying to split an inordinately complicated check. He apologized afterward, and I wanted to say, "Are you kidding? I'd follow you through hell!"
The beers are, in fact, quite good — I was particularly fond of the red ales, though the V.F.W. Light is great, the pale ale surprisingly good considering what a tough crowd I am for that sort of thing, and the coffee stout is a perfect example of the form.
All that surprised me, because the food and drinks at the Beach Chalet don't need to be good: The architectural features of the building mean it will always draw tourists, its location by the beach will always make it convenient for people, and the exceptional views of sunset over the ocean will never get old. Places like this tend to let other things slide, because they can get away with it.
Sure enough, when the screens over the windows began to automatically roll up to reveal the beginning of sunset, the whole room "ooooed." Beach Chalet doesn't have to be as good as it is to get the business it does.
I had just come from a ceremony for the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, which was held on the beach. The idea is that you take bread, which absorbs your sins from the past year, and you throw it into the ocean, casting your sins away and entering the new year clean. I had been surprised to discover, through this ceremony, just how incredibly alienated I am from Judaism. I mean, I knew I wasn't on good terms, but ... wow.
I shouldn't have been surprised; after all, at the last High Holy Days celebration I attended, maybe 10 years ago, I was asked to leave. When I visited Israel, maybe six years before that, I was held at the airport for hours while they tried to determine if I was a security threat. I was unofficially expelled from my college's Jewish Students Association for ... well, that's a long story. And as a child I was kicked out of my Midwestern reform Jewish "Sunday school" three times, my parents intervening to get me re-enrolled each time until, finally, everybody just gave up.
At least this time I didn't cause a scene.
Watching the sun set over the ocean, sampling good beers, I thought of other times I've been to the beach. This past Fourth of July, Miriam picked me up in a convertible I've nicknamed "The Deathtrap" and we drove along the Great Highway, singing at the top of our lungs, stopping whenever we passed an illegal fireworks display launching from the sand. It was an amazing night.
In the movie Life is Beautiful, the main character's uncle tries to teach him to be a waiter at a posh restaurant. "You serve," he instructs, "but you are not a servant. God serves man, but he is not man's servant."
That's it exactly.
The world doesn't have to be this beautiful. It is a gift. My favorite waiters and bar staff could never have been forced or bribed to be as extraordinary as they are: They give. The beer at Beach Chalet is very good, but not the best in the world. That stuff's made by monks as an act of religious devotion and service.
As the sun goes down, and the world changes, I realize that I have not yet found an adequate way of giving thanks.
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