The Plate Got Away With the Spoon

Leominster, MA used to have this spot – The Monument – a great restaurant in the perfect location. It was right in the center of town. A big bar place, with pretty decent steak sandwiches upon request. The steak sandwich wasn’t always on the menu…but when I asked nicely, they’d appear. The plates and silverware weren’t fancy, but there was an upscale vibe.

I couldn’t find a picture of the inside - they closed in 2012

The owners of the place later opened another restaurant, almost on the same block. A decision that made no sense to me.

I mean, why compete with others when we can compete with ourselves? Maybe that was it.

I guess the lights went out one night on a half-full house – people sitting at their tables. Rumors flew around. Was it an electrical failure or a bill-pay failure? I figured the Monument was half full because the remaining regulars were dining at the place they opened to put themselves out of business.

My homegirl Pati Gregson, a few others from Mount Wachusett Community College, and I would head there after work once in a while for the meeting after the meeting. No bullshit, though – one of the pseudo-brainstorming sessions kind of paid off.

Quick story on that is Pati and I were overseeing a dropout prevention program at the Community College. High school students from all over the place – and I mean that – like from more than 30 different towns got a second chance at things. They’d skip high school altogether and enroll as college students. The credits they earned there would kick back to their high school transcripts, and many of them wound up with high school diplomas because of it.

In a nutshell, it was free college credits, earned in classes that started at a more reasonable time for teens. They didn’t need passes to use the bathroom, and they could even slip away for a smoke without anyone thumping a rule book in their faces. If a kid wanted to catch a nap in the student center in between classes, that was fine too.

Not anymore - People are all about the Vapes these days

So we weren’t surprised when we learned there were honors-level students faking wanting to drop out so they could get themselves into a more desirable place…select classes they were actually interested in, and head off to a four-year college with half the work done and half the tuition paid on someone else’s dime.

The problem we were presented with was that these fake-news dropouts were taking seats away from the real-deal dropouts. The move was going to be to turn these youngsters away and tell them that their lamps of learning were back at their homestead schools.

They were bad for the budget. They took too many credits. The college was losing money hand over fist on them because the funding we had wasn’t enough to pay for kids who wanted to take six or seven classes a semester.

For us, though, it wasn’t about money. It was about access.

And one night at the Monument, on a few cocktail napkins, we came up with the idea of applying for funding for a state-approved Innovation School. I brought the napkins back to my office, and over the next few days, these fingers pounded out a proposal – no AI assistance then, either. No framework to copy. It was just an idea that made its way from some Monument Bar napkins to the Secretary of Education.

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. Regular ass plates at the Monument Grill – and Pati and I would submit a proposal soon.

It was approved.

When we started all of this, there were maybe 30 students in the programs. The numbers exceeded a hundred before Pati and I left. I always thought that was something special. It was different. We used our brains, our creativity, and we dressed it all up so it looked good for the people who’d be approving it – and stealing some of the credit – as though they did anything other than say…we will allow this to happen.

A couple of weeks ago, folks from Mount Wachusett Community College reached out to me, asking if I’d do a keynote speech for one of their staff events. I was shocked. Surprised.

It wound up being a one hour interactive workshop + keynote

You see, I had this traffic matter last year that’s been on me like a malignancy – not the kind that hides in an organ – the kind that feels like it’s growing from my face.

It choked me up, you know?

In my mind, the plate ran away with the spoon – the spoon being my reputation…my credibility. All these degrees, all these years, and what I’ll be remembered for has nothing to do with either of those.

Public speaking – I’ve done it so often that it stopped being a big deal to me. Then this. Oh man.

Learning is Loud -And No Sitting Still

I mean, I thought about it day in and day out. I set up a meeting with the folks who asked me to speak so I could learn about what’s been going on over there. It was such a big deal – I had to prepare to prepare.

When we met, they told me the program had grown to more than 700 students.

When I heard the words…seven hundred – I looked down at the floor. I tried to focus on the fact that my shoes had salt stains. My computer bag – one given to me by my friend Brian Wallace – was right next to the chair’s left leg. I could see it in the frame with my shoes. I tucked my head toward my left shoulder, squinting.

I took a deep breath in through my nose, thinking, stay focused on the convo, Michael.

One tear fell – it landed on the shoulder strap of my bag.

I picked up my head and acted like that didn’t just happen.

But it did.

On my way home from that meeting – no music. I have no clue why it was in my head. My mom used to read me that nursery rhyme about the plate getting away with the spoon.

And that was my thought. For at least the rest of that day, I caught up a bit…and I could still see that damn spoon.