WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A... (NINTH OF 10 PARTS)

Waitresses often help finish preparation of the food.

Grace Williams kept track of her orders through a time clock to make sure her customers were served quickly.

Grace Williams served a salad to customer Betty Isbell at the Royal N'Orleans Restaurant.

Grace Williams initially became a waitress because her family needed a second income and she wanted a job that allowed her to stay home with her children during the day. Forty-one years later, the children are gone, but Williams is still on the job.

The past 30 years of her career as a waitress have been spent at the Royal N'Orleans Restaurant, a leading Cape Girardeau eatery where she is practically an institution.

As an athletic girl who played basketball and softball and ran track, Williams had wanted to become a physical education teacher. But she took jobs to help her husband, retired Southeast athletic trainer L.C. "Red" Williams, earn his degree. And children were coming along.

She tried work as a secretary, cook and school bus driver but nothing suited her, and the jobs took her away from her children. Waitress was a perfect fit.

Williams didn't start out at establishments known for fine dining. Her first waitress job was at Patti's Drive-in in Pueblo, Colo. Then there was a Mexican restaurant in Texas. In Cape Girardeau, she worked at the Purple Crackle when it was a restaurant and not a disco, at the Holiday Inn and at a Broadway bistro called Ricardo's before settling in for the long haul at the Royal N'Orleans.

For the past 20 years, part of her job has involved training new waitresses and waiters at the Royal N'Orleans. She also bakes the restaurant's desserts.

Williams' advice to first-grader Alli Kluesner, who wants to be a waitress when she grows up (see related story), is to go to college. "Waitress is nothing to aspire to," she says.

But, she added, "it's a good job to have while going to college."

She points out that John and Jeri Ann Wyman, who own both the Royal N'Orleans and Mollie's restaurants, worked as bartenders, servers and cooks while going to college. That was invaluable hands-on experience.

"Now they own two of Cape Girardeau's finest eating establishments," Williams said.

Being a waitress requires skill in English, math, etiquette, manners, speaking and grooming as well as good self-esteem, Williams says.

"Waitresses may not have a lot of book learning but we have a lot of `life' learning and good common sense," she said.

Like most jobs, being a waitress has highs and lows.

"Any job is about serving people in one way or another," Williams says, "but being able to make people enjoy an evening out is a talent and is richly rewarded in appreciation. And it makes you feel good."

The $315 tip a party of goose hunters left her one night made her feel especially good.

The lack of health care and retirement plans is one drawback to the job, Williams says.

And once in awhile a customer might be rude.

"You just have to smile," Williams says. "I go on my theory that the customer is always right. They may have had a bad day or might just be grumpy people."

When she started out, waitress was one of the few jobs that allowed a woman to make as much money as a man. It still can be lucrative.

One of her daughters has put herself through architectural school by being a waitress. Another daughter is in the food service business.

The Williamses have four children: Tom, Terri, Tony and Tracy.

Williams doesn't regret her decision to be a waitress but wishes she could have gone to college and could have pursued athletics more fully.

"I was born too early," she says. "I would love to have been born now when I could have competed against men."