The subject of today’s blog is the Safeway at 82nd and Burnside in Southeast Portland, Oregon. The store, which has probably not been remodeled during my lifetime, has one of those gloriously arched front exteriors and an enormous parking lot that visually dominates a very major intersection. With one exception, I cannot really describe its interior because there is nothing very distinctive about it. It’s a grocery store with linoleum floors and fluorescent lights. There’s a produce section and a deli and a bakery; the store is one of the few places that accepts returns manually, so there’s usually a line of people with overflowing grocery carts snaking back through the meat section, waiting to cash in the bottles and cans. For the first several years, there was a gigantic clock above one of the exits. On this clock there was neither a minute hand nor an hour hand. I wondered about that particular detail for years. Stolen for scrap metal, or a comment on timelessness? Or maybe … who knows?
I was looking at frozen pizzas the other morning when the woman who appears to run the place walked by. She said good morning and I wished her a happy New Year. And then she said, “Have you heard our horrible news?”
We regret to inform you that Dave Miller passed away on 1/9/2011 of an apparent heart attack. He was 61 years old. Dave was with Safeway for 37 years (7/12/73) and had been at our store since 1983. Dave was well loved by his coworkers and customers alike and will be greatly missed by all who knew him. He is survived by his son, Matt and daughter, Sarah and grandchildren, Paley and Sullie. He also leaves his mother, a brother and 4 sisters. Dave enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren, playing tennis, hiking and was a huge sports fan. He also enjoyed visiting with his customers and was a great ambassador for the store. Funeral services are pending at this time.
This was printed on a yellow paper with a photo of Dave about halfway down the sheet, stacks of which had been left at the end of each aisle. I didn’t know Dave, but I’d been through his line many times. He was friendly. There was nothing profound about my interactions with him.
But there was something profound, unfortunately, about what was going on in that store on Monday morning. Many of the people who work at the store were dressed not in their uniforms but in the sort of attire one might wear to a memorial service, which, as it turned out, was on Monday afternoon. Out of uniform, they had a different dimension to them, one I’d never seen before, which, of course, underscored what really makes me sad about Tucson. Unlike the grief that took place on television, Facebook, Twitter and God knows where else, the people at the Safeway were honoring the life of someone they actually knew, in person, for many years. And the fact that I found that refreshing is a sad commentary on the hijacking of terms like loss, grief and emotion.
