Photo by Kira Turnbull
She is the woman who smiles and wishes you good morning on your worst day, and she’s already been up for four and a half hours. She is the woman who pours you a mean cup of coffee or a startlingly delicious pumpkin spice latté when you have too much work to handle. She feeds you delicious Asiago bagels in the morning and afternoon. Her name is Lorelai Frantz, she is the caffeine rushing through Shain Library’s veins, and many people can’t imagine their daily routine without her.
After two minutes with Lorelai, I was immediately put at ease. It’s a calm that’s hard to explain, not unlike the one you feel when speaking with an aunt or therapist who gets you just a bit more than your parents do. The interview, meant to be pretty little simplistic Q&A, turned into our discussion. When you’re speaking with Lorelai, as long as students and faculty aren’t hungry or thirsty, you have her full attention. She apologizes each time she has to break away, something I didn’t mind at all. But it’s important to mention that we were interrupted not only by order requests, but by students who just wanted to chat. She’s popular, she’s busy and she’s so adored. Before meeting with her I spoke with some of the people she employs. Erik Kartowoski ’12 informed me that Lorelai is often the best friend of her employees. Fellow Blue Camel worker Nicole Moomjy ’12 jumped right in: “Lorelai works a lot – she wakes up at 4:00 in the morning every single day just to get her butt here and serve people coffee, and to be really friendly and happy. She’s awesome.”
Lorelai has been working at Connecticut College for seven years now. “When I came here, Blue Camel wasn’t anything like it is now,” she told me. Starting in 2003 after a terrible family loss, Lorelai quit her job managing the Saybrook Fish House in Old Saybrook, CT. Tired of people complaining about their undercooked fish, and feeling a bit detached, she listened to a friend’s advice and took the job at Blue Camel after the now defunct café at the Lyman Allyn museum didn’t do well. At first it seemed that the same fate would befall Blue Camel.
“I didn’t have a lot of business… only the freshmen came because everyone had their own thing, you know? And I used to cry all the time, so I’d cry and then someone would come down and I’d have to pull it together and say, ‘Hi! How are you? What can I do for you?!” Lorelai laughed.
The space now occupied by comfy chairs and circle tables was a lifeless landscape of bookshelves – the café’s introduction encouraged the college to bring life to the area. Soon, people were stopping by more often, and those members of the freshman class became fixtures in Lorelai’s daily life.
And her daily life it was. Lorelai had no student workers, and was the only person manning the counter, from the morning shift until midnight. This from a woman who really does get up at 4:30 every morning. It’s time, she says, she gets to have to herself – to get some household chores done, play with her two dogs, a Great Pyrenees and a Bouvier de Flanders, and her new kitten.
A student leaving the library told her to enjoy her weekend, and to have fun. When I inquired as to what fun tonight and Saturday might bring, she offhandedly said, “I’m going to a wine tasting and having my tires changed. Life is so exciting.”
Born in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, Lorelai moved to Old Lyme with her grandmother and grew up primarily on her farm, because her parents didn’t want her to be raised in the city. Lorelai eventually returned to her birthplace of New York City, where she met her husband. She was a seamstress at a sale loft at the time, and he was in sales. Ten years later they got married – they celebrated their thirtieth anniversary this year. Now she works here with us, and he builds houses and in his spare time plays country music. “Don’t get married fast, “ was the advice Lorelai gave me. “Just hang out for a really long time. See what you guys are about.” Sound advice from a woman who spends her days around college kids.
Still residing in Old Lyme, Lorelai also lived in New London in the 1980s with her husband. “We lived by the beach. I love New London, I really do,” she said, making coffee for a student who walked in on us talking. She loves its art and music scene, recommends the Dutch Tavern and agrees with me that Exchange isn’t the best place to be spending your Fridays. She doesn’t think the New London Police are incredibly effective (“Whatever happened to protect and serve?”) but believes that New London is getting better and better each year.
Lorelai has a self-described addiction to gum and an affinity for the word “delicious.” In the face of Cro and Harris, Lorelai is totally hooking us up. “We try everything – we try a lot of different things, and whatever works we keep,” she said. The soups she serves comes from Hale and Hearty in New York City, as do some of the baked goods, which also come from Coffee’s Country Market in Old Lyme. She’s environmentally conscious, and aware of different eating styles. Lorelai loves all different kinds of food. Should she take over Harris? Probably. But those who know Lorelai like her exactly where she is.
“I was kind of scared of Lorelai last year,” Moomjy admitted with a smile, “Because she really… she gets it done, you know? If you mess up she’s going to let you know, and she’s going to give you a heads up. But that’s why things work, and now I’m here all day, every day and I love her. She solves my problems and she has lots of great gossip. She’s great.”
It’s invigorating to know that so many individuals here have been affected by the calming, funny, genuine person Lorelai is. Throughout the interview, she scanned the room continuously, either looking for people she had yet to greet, or people who needed help. She’s open and candid, so I knew it wasn’t a fear of being overheard as much as a double-check that everyone was okay.
Lorelai said that Conn students haven’t changed that much since she started, and that she doesn’t know a lot of people at Conn, just that population of students to stop by. She knows more faces than she thinks. She attends graduation every year, sits there clapping, her eyes misting occasionally – a happy kind of cry – as she watches another group of people she’s grown to know leave. “I have a great time here, I meet great people, I learn so much,” she said. When asked what she would change about Conn if given the power to do so, she offers me an honest and earnest answer. “I think I would make sure that everyone really got along and didn’t just fake it, instead of saying it for the face value. People I get down here are real, but I hear stories sometimes of unhappy and unpleasant experiences that students have had with others on this campus that I cannot believe. Maybe I believe it, I just wish it wasn’t like that.”
With her finger on the pulse of the school, it’s fascinating how well Lorelai understands this stage of development. When a student realizes that places like Blue Camel exist, run by people who listen to you and who actually care, they forget the faux coziness (and pumpkin flavor) that a mammoth chain like Starbucks recreates and start appreciating the dedication and efforts of individuals like Lorelai, a real person.
One of the items on her bucket list is to travel to the Mediterranean – Lorelai’s of Greek ancestry – and to Alaska. She loves music from the late 70s and the 80s like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and The Clash, but also listens to LCD Soundsystem and Amy Winehouse. I wonder if she’ll let me come on her next trip. We could eat delicious food and laugh about the time her husband chased a New Londoner into the bathroom at a bar for grabbing a CC senior’s butt. These stories, her stories, are among the many things she offers if you ask. Until we get invited with her to the Mediterranean, I suggest you join me in visiting her in the basement of Shain to just eat soup and listen.
