After getting directions, I walked quickly to her house.
“The University of Delaware offered Dr. Cheema a job,” Mrs. McGennis explained as she set my belongings on the kitchen table. “He and his wife moved there in July.”
I thanked Mrs. McGennis and loaded my boxes into the trunk of my car, which was parked in the driveway. The news of the Cheemas’ abrupt departure upset me greatly. I had counted on them for advice and comfort. Part of me asked, Now what will I do? Who will help me through my difficulties? To console myself, I said, God helps those who help themselves. Whatever happens, I must continue.
As fall semester 1963 began, I realized Bs and Cs were not good enough. If I wanted to do well and take my education seriously, I needed to make As and Bs. I started associating with the students who made those grades, telling myself, If they can do it, I can do it too.
I spent extra time with the teachers, asking them questions after class to make sure I understood the subject matter. To stay organized, I created a weekly schedule for classes, homework, extra studying, and social activities. The schedule helped me keep track of assignments so I could finish them in a timely manner and have time to spend with my friends at UT. The changes in my routine affected my grades in a positive way, encouraging me to continue pursuing my bachelor’s degree. Over and over I told myself I had not come to America to cook and clean. I’d come to get a civil engineering degree so I could become an SDO in India.
Before the end of spring semester in 1964, I wrote to the White-sells to see if they would offer me the cooking job again. They responded that they would not only offer me the job but would raise my salary to $350 per month with room and board included. When summer came, I packed my suitcase and boarded the bus to Wildwood, New Jersey.
A friend I had known in Punjab, Jasbir Singh Mann, was in Knoxville at the time. We had studied together at the Vishvakarma Institute of Technology and stayed in touch after I left India. He also decided to attend the University of Tennessee two years after I did. He surprised me one day, showing up at my dorm room at Knoxville College. It was a wonderful, yet awkward, reunion because I’d never told him that I was not going to UT anymore, and I was slightly embarrassed about it. Jasbir had looked all over for me until one of my friends from UT told him where I was.
Jasbir was having a hard time at UT as well, and he confided in me that he didn’t want to spend the summer in Knoxville. He came to Wildwood a few weeks after I did. I asked the Whitesells if they could give him a job, and they offered him a busboy position as well as a room to sleep in upstairs with the dining room staff.
Right from the start, I prepared breakfast easily and learned new methods to cook eggs to go with bacon, sausage, or ham. Confident in my cooking skills, I needed Mrs. Whitesell in the kitchen very little. In fact, I was so confident that my salary seemed low, especially considering I worked seven days a week and long hours each day. I learned that cooks in other restaurants made $640 a month working only five days a week with two days off to enjoy themselves or work another job. I wouldn’t be getting free room and board the way I did at the hotel, but the money was still significantly more. I began looking around Wildwood for available cooking positions.
In a short time, a restaurant offered me a job, and while I wanted to take it, my loyalty to the Whitesells made me hesitate. They treated me like a family member and gave me all the comforts at their home in Pennsylvania. When they heard I might be leaving, the Whitesells offered another fifty dollars per month, saying they would love for me to stay.
Looking at my calculations again, I figured I would still be working seven days a week with no days off, and I really wanted the extra two days, so I could work another job. Sadly, I told the Whitesells I would be leaving the Dorsey Hotel.
The next day, I rented a room near the restaurant and began working forty to forty-eight hours a week at a diner, covering the breakfast and lunch hours from 6:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. It was a fast-paced environment, and I learned how to break an egg in each hand at the same time. For parties of eight to ten, all orders needed to be finished and served at the same time.
During the weekdays, I was the only cook, but sometimes Lee, the manager, helped out if I was in a jam. Lee’s wife, Linda, helped manage the place. At one time, she had worked as a waitress in the restaurant until they fell in love and got married. Sometimes, she still waitressed if the place was really busy and we needed help.
Jimmy, a guy who went to college in Philadelphia, helped during the weekend breakfast hours, since it was always extra crowded. He was considered a fast short-order cook, and he liked to brag about himself. Jimmy also liked to tease me while we worked. He gave me a hard time about being from India, and he always talked about how much the US was doing for foreign countries, giving
