The Counter Community -- With The Closing Of Woolworth's Lunch Counters, The Regulars Are Wondering Where They'll Go

Everyone talks about Thelma, how her elegant, silver beehive is a beacon as she crosses Manette Bridge, striding with determination toward her destination: the F.W. Woolworth Co. lunch counter in Bremerton.

"What will she do? What will we do, when Saturday comes?" customers ask.

For a week now the signs - "Close Out Specials. All pie 99 cents. Thanks for the memories" - have broadcast the news.

The lunch counter of the Bremerton budget department store, like the one in the Seattle Woolworth, will close tomorrow. The rest of both stores will close in January.

While many customers will miss having a source for bargains on vinyl purses, faux-gold jewelry and budget cologne, the real blow will be felt by lunch-counter loyalists who gather for salisbury steak or liver-and-onion day, sharing fragments of their lives.

Thelma Wills, an 82-year-old retiree who was a school secretary and office manager for a Bremerton medical clinic, has been coming here every day at 3 o'clock for years.

Even Ettamay Strang can't remember when Thelma began her four-mile round-trip walk to Woolworth and back. Ettamay has waited on customers there for 22 years.

"You can set your clock by Thelma," waitress Jeannie West says.

There are other regulars as well, including Don Bulcom, who settles onto the red Naugahyde swivel chair at the chrome-trimmed counter.

He orders a Good Morning Breakfast Special: two eggs, hash browns, toast and two strips of bacon for $2.50. Jeannie slips him an extra egg.

"I have 4 1/2 dozen eggs to get rid of by next Saturday," she says.

"You see, where else do they do things like this?" he says, in appreciation, smearing jelly onto toast.

The talk revolves around the closing, prospective unemployment for the store's 12 employees, how so many other businesses have closed recently in downtown Bremerton and how there will be no place to go if you're a low-income senior citizen, wanting company, coffee and maybe a patty melt.

There are restaurants out near the mall in Silverdale. And there are one or two other downtown restaurants, but they're more expensive than the Woolworth lunch counter, the customers say.

"This town is not a rich town. It needs a place like this," Don says.

It's a typically quiet morning with sunnyside-up eggs sizzling on the grill and Ettamay and Jeannie traversing the length of the counter at a steady clip.

They pour coffee and fill little plastic containers with Jeannie's ever-popular homemade coleslaw. ("It's just from a Betty Crocker recipe I use at home," she says modestly.) And they bring out the tartar sauce - all to get ready for lunch.

"Ettamay is famous for her tartar sauce," Jeannie says.

But the real action starts as the lunch crowd gathers, shipyard workers who want affordable meals.

"I'm going to have to start bringing my lunchbox," says Ken Hagar, a shipyard computer systems manager who orders a bacon cheeseburger, the monthly special.

"It's friendly here and less expensive than other places," he says. "Lunch at the counter gives people a chance to slow down, get away from the office.

"Everyone over 45 remembers when there were a lot of lunch counters. They had the original fast food," he says. "Here you can sit and watch people."

A teenage couple enter the nearby photo booth, pull the drape. Quarters plink into the machine, which will capture their images in smudgy black-and-white.

"Where else can you go to eat, have your picture taken and buy a canary before you leave?" Ken asks.

Well, almost.

The pet section closed a few years ago, says Bret Hinson, store manager, who also laments the counter's loss.

"The thing that upsets me is that some of the senior citizens who have been coming here for years won't have any place to go," he says. "One lady - even I know when she comes in, the first thing is to get her a pot of tea."

A patty sizzles on the grill. Jeannie lowers a basket of fries into the deep fryer. When the hissing and crackling fades, she pulls them out - all golden brown.

Dottie Kyles and her daughter, DeeDee Branson, bought a plateful to share. Lunch and snacks at the counter have been a longstanding tradition for them.

"This is the only place I can get a cherry Coke," Dottie says. She talks about trips to the Woolworth lunch counter in her native Los Angeles, where her mother bought her ice cream.

She talks, too, of the bargains you can contemplate while in the midst of a cherry Coke. Bargains like $5 children's clothes and $55 bikes.

Someone points to an Oct. 23, 1940, newspaper clipping on the wall celebrating the store's move to its present location.

The advertisement boasts "world famous jumbo Coca-Colas, 5 cents" and turkey club sandwiches for 25 cents.

While the menu, heavy with fried food, may not appeal to city yuppies, the loyalists give the lunch counter culinary raves.

A Poulsbo woman bit into a tangy piece of lemon meringue pie. "Just like pie from a package of Jell-O," she sighs blissfully.

It's five minutes past three and the chair in front of the coffee pot is respectfully left vacant for Thelma. Out in the street, there's no sign of her.

Then, suddenly, her silvery tresses are seen from two blocks away. She rounds the corner, pauses to chat with friends.

And then she arrives, a bloom of cool air clinging about her.

"I'm only about five minutes late today, aren't I?" she asks as she slides onto the chair. Ettamay pours coffee into a white, china cup, "Thelma's favorite."

Thelma wears a tiny gardenia corsage on her white sweater. Her blue eyes sparkle and she talks about how her mother and two sisters used to be Woolworth clerks in the '20s.

"It's a shame they're closing it," she says.

The malt machine whirs, turning stainless steel cups frosty. Bubbles of pink foam cluster along the glass rim of a strawberry soda. A moon-shaped scoop of vanilla ice cream nestles in apple pie.

Thelma sips her coffee, visits with friends and listens to Ettamay tell her who's been in earlier and asked about her.

Because this is Woolworth, they always do.