Stories about Sunken Grade - Coffee and the Gospel

Another Sunken Grade story. This one was inspired by a high school classmate.

Coffee and the Gospel

Even in high school Juanita was different. There was a certain grace about her.

It took me many months to ask her out. In fact I was home on leave from the Navy when we had our first and only date. She was (and remains) unlike any girl I had even known.

Later she would call herself a self proclaimed Jesus freak.

For many of us she was Pastor Juanita of Sunken Grade Church and Coffee Shop, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I came home from the Navy Juanita was away at college. I would run into her mother at the post office and she would keep me current on Juanita’s progress. Sometimes I felt like she was reminding me that her daughter was way out of my league and I agreed with her.

Of course Juanita and I were in two totally different worlds. She was working toward her goal of becoming a minister. I working at enjoying life in Portland during the week and in Sunken Grade on the weekends I came home.

Then Juanita came home.

There was only one empty building that was usable as a church. It was the old Sunken Grade Feedlot building. It had been used for several different purposes during its seventy years. In the late 30’s it had been a feed store. In 1961 it was converted into a restaurant. The new owners had high hopes that the coast traffic would increase as the highway was improved. The State Highway department decided to bypass Sunken Grade and after a couple of very poor seasons, they moved their restaurant to the new highway.

Juanita fell in love with the old building when she first saw it. It solved three problems. First it would provide a home for her church. Second it would provide a place for her to live. There was a small apartment on the back of the building. Finally, it would provide employment while her new church grew.

I came home to Sunken Grade too. The excitement of Portland had worn thin and I found it harder and harder to leave Sunken Grade Friday night.

One Saturday afternoon I had encountered Jack Powers, publisher and editor of the Sunken Grade Tribune. He offered me a job. Jack didn’t say it, but I soon realized that he was burned out.

The staff of the paper included Mae, Jack’s wife of 39 years, Eva Hollinghead, who had started as a high school reporter in 1915, and Howie Skidmore, typesetter and pressman. I was to be a Jack-of-all-Trades. Jack wanted me to be a reporter, sell ads and to learn about new publishing techniques. Mae ran the office and she was more than welling to let me do whatever I wanted.

Now I’m sure you think you know where this story is going. I go to the coffee shop, see Juanita, fall in love; we marry and live happily ever after. You’re wrong… will partly.

I did go to the coffee shop. Actually, I saw Juanita and her mother and the building on the day she first looked at it. I stopped by to welcome her home and to offer to help any way I could. Juanita promised to take me up on the offer and her mother gave me the evil eye. Even after all these years she was protecting her daughter from the sailor.