Betrayal at the Good Earth Restaurant
A Silicon Valley Summers Story
Palo Alto, California — probably one of the prettiest places in the world to grow up. The weather is perfect, the streets are safe and tree-lined. The people are generally progressive and well-educated. However, beneath this idyllic veneer are serious problems; an undercurrent of intense ambition, relentless performance standards and Silicon Valley’s never-ending search for validation.
The 1980s were a coming-of-age period for Palo Alto, as well as for me — a decade of transformation in which the city shed its quaint university-town vibe to become the heart of Silicon Valley. I, too, grew from a child into a young man, struggling to understand my loss of innocence and my own emerging darkness.
Palo Alto was named after a specific tall redwood tree (known as “El Palo Alto”) that stood near the San Francisquito Creek. This tree became a landmark for early Spanish explorers and settlers. In a broader sense, the term could be used to describe any tall tree or pole in Spanish-speaking contexts.
I’m fairly sure you know where I’m going with this. The name of one of the country’s wealthiest, snobbiest towns, home to Stanford University and countless successful Silicon Valley companies, was just slang for “big cock.”
Inside jokes can help relieve some of the pressure, but only so much. My brothers and I attended Henry M. Gunn Senior High School, which was not only in Palo Alto, it was actually located on Stanford property. The expectations at “Gunn,” as it is commonly known, were particularly intense; the student body was a mix of Stanford faculty brats and the children of some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest tech celebrities. At times unspoken, but always understood: Excel academically, get into an elite university, and then morph into a famous, wealthy techno-influencer.
On top of that, there was the expectation to be a fit and attractive Californian — preferably a champion swimmer or tennis player. While it wasn’t as intense as the Southern California beauty expectation, it still echoed the Northern California mystique. Think less rhinoplasty and more laps in the pool; the result was the same: be attractive, but above all, be smart. And, of course, be stressed.
In my family, there was at least a vague awareness of these pressures, coupled with my parents desire to ensure that my brothers and I didn’t turn out to be spoiled or entitled (the outcome is still debatable). However, we always had jobs. As soon as we could legally work and ride a bicycle, we were holding down part-time gigs.
My first job was delivering newspapers every afternoon. Then Swenson’s Ice Cream Parlor in downtown Palo Alto, where I gave away more scoops than I sold. A co-worker ratted me out, and I was fired, publicly and rather dramatically, by my very alcoholic manager.
Next up was the frozen yogurt shop down the street. “Fro Yo” was the new trend and all the rage in the 80’s. I soon moved up to the Gelato Cafe, and finally, The Good Earth Restaurant. It was at the takeout bar, where my best friend Joanna and I launched a money making racket in the summer of our senior year. A scheme we believed to be the perfect crime. Until an unthinkable event threatened to tear us apart.
A bit of history first.
We were not meant to be criminals.
Joanna and I were best friends through-out high school, although we knew each other since we were toddlers. Our parents almost communed together back in the early 1970s. Similar to World War I, there are only a few of us still living that remember those days. It wasn’t as bloody as a bonafide World War, but it was pretty messy.
We were separated for a number of years only to be united again in high school. Joanna looked like a Jewish Molly Ringwald. But she was smarter, a lot less whiny and extremely funny. Mature and independent, with a strong personality, I was immediately drawn to her and we soon became inseparable.
We were basically outsiders for most of high school until late in our junior year, when we were “discovered” by many of the popular kids, who grew to appreciate our stylish outfits and experimental haircuts. This culminated in Joanna being voted “Most Vogue” while I received the honor “Most GQ” our senior year.
A brief direct to any young mother (or father) to be: Should your son, at the age of 11 (or any age, for that matter), win one or both of these contests at a summer “sleep away” camp: Best Tan and/or Best Disco Dancer, you can be certain you have in your possession, a very gifted son. Should that son grow into a teenager and then be awarded “Most GQ” in his senior year of high school, you are now in possession of a very gifted son who is also, without question, historically gay. This is not an opinion. It is science.
I hate stereo-typing. Wait, I promised myself I would be rigorously honest — which is a fancy way of saying “I want you to like me” — so I’ll restate that: I hate it when you think I am stereo-typing, but come on now.
Your son will grow into the sort of fella who is curiously more polite and better groomed than, say his brothers or schoolmates. He may, for example, offer to help clear dishes and clean the kitchen after a family holiday meal. And later on in adulthood, may bring with him some friends to a family holiday meal. They will, surprisingly, also offer to help the “women-folk” clean and serve. You might notice a pattern and like my mother, say to your son after a particularly messy Passover meal, “You’re friends are so…gracious” to which your son will reply “Duh Mom. They’re Gay.”
Memory is a funny thing. My own can best be described as faulty, yet wonderfully cinematic; rich with embellishments and substitute personas. In other words, most of my memories are just really great looking movie stars playing me in hilarious, madcap adventures that leave the viewer (viewer?) with the impression that I’m just a misunderstood misfit with impossibly broad shoulders and a heart of gold. The reality is far different: I would describe myself as resembling an aging day-time television star, at best.
I remember one weekend night, Joanna and I went to a party at a classmate’s house in Los Altos Hills — which oddly translates to “The High Hills”, which I was under the impression was the definition of a mountain. Perhaps they were suggesting that this location was an ideal place to become intoxicated; it certainly was that night. The host was a German exchange student, Nicole, who was, I swear, at least 30 years old yet still in high school with us. I had too much to drink and was dragged by Nicole behind a large set of manicured bushes.
My memory, which I’ve already admitted has had a lot of script revisions, is that Joanna, worried about what Nicole would do to me, stood with a megaphone on the other side of the bushes, the other members of the party behind her, some in riot gear, others holding flaming torches and pitchforks.
“Nicole, let the hostage go…his name is Michael. Michael is a very kind and gentle young man.” She kept repeating my name in the hopes that Nicole would realize that I was a human being…
OK, perhaps an exaggeration and a bit of cinematic borrowing, but the point is that Joanna had my back.
What could ever come between us?
Welcome to the Good Earth, a healthy-food style restaurant popular in the 1970’s and 1980’s until the discovery that fresh vegetables and fruit were actually healthy and tasted good. The Good Earth couldn’t compete, but in its day, it was wildly popular.
Joanna and I ended up both working there during the summer of our senior year of high school. We privately referred to our place of employment as the “Scum of the Earth Restaurant.” I forget the name of our manager, but I recall his nickname was Joe Wormslee. For some reason we decided that his hair style, texture and type belonged to the category known as “child molestor hair” though this was a baseless and cruel description that was just coincidentally rather accurate.
The Good Earth Restaurant prided itself on serving “healthy” food, which included inedible rolls, pastries, and sunflower-seed-infused veggie burgers. These items were inventoried, but they also served smoothy-type shakes to go. The drinks were a mix of chopped fruit, nuts, protein powders, and other ingredients that defied unitization. They were untraceable.
And so, our scheme was born.
Here’s how it worked:
You can imagine the scene narrated in a thick New York accent, like a Scorsese film, with quick-cutaways showing each step of the scheme: Da’ customer… da’ register… da’ pocket.
- Da’ customer orders a ‘smoodee’.
(Ok, hold on. I don’t speak Scorsese and I’m just embarrassing myself, so you will have to imagine the accent yourself)
- The customer pays with cash.
- You ring up their purchase and place the cash into the register.
- You give the receipt to the customer and they leave.
Here is where the brilliance begins. The clientele of the Good Earth was notorious for sending food back. While it’s hard to blame them, it remains a mystery why so many of them returned their smoothies. But they did, from time to time, and policy was to give them their money back or make them a brand new smoothie. You with me?
There is no way to track how many smoothies were actually made, so you simply “returned” the cash for an unhappy customer and made them a new smoothie. We just returned the cash to ourselves.
However, what if someone saw us placing cash from the register into our front pocket of the burgundy color aprons we wore? We thought of everything, don’t worry.
There was another layer to this scheme. One of our extra duties was to collect tips left for waitstaff who were no longer on shift. Fellow waitpeople would hand us little envelopes of cash with the waiter’s name written on them and we placed them into the register and eventually, put them into our aprons to bring down to the locker area and deposit into each of their mail slots.
Now, we never stole any one’s tips. That was a code of honor no. But we used the little envelopes to hold the extra cash. We would write a fictitious name in case anyone caught us and would then state…“Oh, I got this name wrong, my mistake”…though it never happened.
We had other rules:
- Never pocket more than $20 per shift.
- Never work the same shift together but if you had to, split the earnings 50–50.
- Never get greedy. $20 per shift.
- Never rat each other out.
The system was perfect. We thought of everything. And the money wasn’t for anything extravagant — just late-night meals at Lyon’s Diner or coffee at the newest cafés popping up in Palo Alto and Stanford.
There are no perfect plans in this life. One day, mid-way through the summer, I was asked to come into Joe’s office. This was it. I was busted, I was sure of it. To my surprise and horror, I was instead asked if I was interested in being promoted to company clerk. That’s right, the position responsible for managing petty cash funds, ensuring proper documentation of withdrawals and deposits and checking that inventory in the take out counter matched the cash coming in every shift.
And so, Joanna and I went from partners in crime to adversaries. We debated and discussed what to do. This could have spelled disaster, but the beauty of a summer job is that it inevitably ends. I wish I could tell you that the story ends with a Scorsese-style climax involving a walk-in freezer, a meat cleaver or large metal hook from which one or both of us would swing, perhaps with the addition of a plastic bag tied around our heads, faces frozen in one last grotesque scream.
Instead, we ran out of time before there was a climax (I should say “we ran out of timex before there was a climax” because I.love.rhymes). We were off to college and had to leave our jobs at the Good Earth behind.
Decades slip by so quickly now. Have I grown wiser? Perhaps, but I don’t recognize wisdom in the traditional sense. Instead, I see life’s lessons as purely practical. Sooner or later, no matter where you come from — whether it’s the pressure cooker of Palo Alto’s wealth and ambition or the struggles of the inner city — the world will, inevitably, kick your ass. Life, at its core, is a series of ass-kickings no one asked for but everyone endures.
Maybe that’s what wisdom really is: accepting this truth and finding refuge in the moments that don’t feel like a fight. These days, those moments mostly live in my memories — embellished, re-scripted, perhaps, but still mine to cherish and mine to share with anyone willing to listen.
I’m happy to report that Joanna and I survived the betrayal that almost ended a perfect crime scheme. We continue to be close friends to this day and lead mostly crime-free lives.
If the Good Earth still occupied that prime corner of University Avenue, perhaps I’d walk in and hand the new manager a check to repay the money we stole. Morally, this would be the right thing to do, but ultimately the decision would rest on one condition: the Good Earth would have had to entirely banish sunflower seeds from their menu. Alas, wisdom is lost.
