Gordono’s at Clark & Catalpa, NE corner this a.m. after mass at nearby St. Gregory’s. Friendly Omar makes the salads there. He took my $5 for paper, coffee, and (glazed) doughnut, returned a few coins change in a no-look (at what I’d bought) transaction that took a half minute preceded by warm chat with lady of the establishment, who had intro’d Omar as salad chef.

It’s an amazing place. Says pharmacy out front in top of window signs on Catalpa and Clark sides, but just below eye level on Clark there’s “Jewish deli.” What’s that? Deli cum drug store? Yes, that and more: a full-scale restaurant and coffee shop, with sturdy high tables and stools along both windows and coffee dispenser a step away for initial cup and refill, plus restaurant-style tables in adjoining room.

In rear of the corner room is the pharmacy with big signs, aspirin etc. along one short wall, band-aids etc. along the other and a booth area for the pharmacist to take and fill scrips. Everything about it is tightly wound in sense of nothing flimsy, no space wasted — a triumph of interior design with no sense of being crowded, much of being fascinated by the variety of the place.

The matzoh-ball soup is made on the spot, the lady told me, she the apparent owner or at least manager, 30-something, bright of eye and black of hair, plump, attractive, friendly and businesslike at same time.

At my Trib when once settled with coffee and doughnut, I read of the governor mixing it with legislators, feinting, dodging, in the game, in sharp contrast to the somewhat aloof, self-absorbed predecessor who offered no solution at at any time, just stopgap measures to save our state, which is in a state of alarm or should be.