Perspectives

July 17, 2023

Last night, in a magnificent redwood forest, someone stole nine of my forks.

The crime spree continued when my next door forest neighbor discovered that someone (the same person?) stole three of his water glasses.

These are but two of the countless mini dramas that occur every night at the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive private men’s club where I work as a food server for four weeks every summer. My next door neighbor Brian (our tables are adjacent) and I are two of about 250 food servers and bussers that wait on dozens of picnic tables in the outdoor Dining Circle under the stars.

It’s a beautiful setting (for a more detailed description of my experience at the Bohemian Grove, scroll down to my July 24 2022 post entitled The Whale in the Forest). But while it may appear serene on the surface, there are underlying tensions as hundreds of servers, bussers, kitchen staff, and managers jostle and scramble behind the scenes to quickly and efficiently serve an average of 1,000 dinner guests every night. While our interactions are mostly harmonious, low-key conflicts do arise, and the pressures of cheerful speedy service cause many of us to discreetly complain about each other.

The reason that Brian and I were offended by the theft of our forks and water glasses is that those items and all other parts of the table settings are readily available in the kitchen area. Our two tables were already elegantly set, so someone(s) decided to save themselves a short walk to the kitchen by taking items from our place settings behind our backs. While we eventually laughed about the pilfering, we were incredulous that anyone would be so lazy and inconsiderate as to remove our carefully placed utensils and glassware.

The problem with any kind of stealing, even the relatively benign “borrowing” that Brian and I experienced, is that it creates mistrust and ill will. I now feel a need to guard against other in-house restaurant predators and culinary scoundrels, silly as that seems. Other servers have told me that they too have to protect their tables from would-be snatchers. I now have a new appreciation for the eighth commandment, Thou Shalt Not Steal. How can co-workers, neighbors, or strangers get along in any society if some people feel it’s acceptable to take items from others without their knowledge or permission?

I wasn’t going to write about such a seemingly petty topic until I read an interesting article in today’s New York Times about a recent gathering of Roma (gypsies) and Travellers (Irish nomads) in England. These two groups, with different origins but similar cultures, are sometimes appreciated, defended, and romanticized. But they are mostly reviled, due to their high crime rates in general and penchant for thievery in particular. Both Roma and Travellers are found all over Europe and the United States.

I have seen the colorful traditional Traveller wagons in Ireland, and all over Europe I’ve been warned about Roma pickpockets. A former co-worker told me about how her elderly father was swindled by Roma con-men in San Francisco, where the police told her that they were well acquainted with the Roma community.

Many years ago I met a woman at a party here in Sonoma County who told me that she was a Gypsy. When I asked her if the stereotype of Gypsies being thieves was accurate, she said that yes, unfortunately, it was a deeply embedded part of their culture. I asked her what she thought might be a solution to that problem, and she said one word: education. She herself was a college graduate – as I remember she had a Masters degree – and while she loved her community, she admitted that they needed to learn that stealing not only harms the victims of the thefts, but it harms her Roma community as well by causing everyone else to shun them.

In the greater scheme of things, Roma, Travellers, and Bohemian Grove burglars are all human beings worthy of respect, in spite of their lack of understanding of the need for personal boundaries. I want to get along with all of them. So I have just one message for them.

Don’t touch my damn forks.