This is something I’ve written about several times in different ways, the last being in 2011.
There is something about a waffle house that I love from the moment I walked through the doors for the first time. It was in North Carolina when I was a junior reporter for the Greensboro News-Record in 1977. I worked the late afternoon shift, which ended around 1 a.m.
At the time, the Waffle House was primarily located in the south. Now it’s almost everywhere, almost 2,000 locations.
When former tribe shortstop Omar Vizquel was playing in Butte, MT, he used to eat at Waffle House.
The simple merchant
Former tribal shortstop Omar Vizquel once told me about his first year in professional baseball. He was a 17-year-old Venezuelan who signed with the Seattle Mariners and was posted to Butte, MT.
“The menu also featured photos of the food,” Vizquel said. “I was in Montana. I couldn’t speak a word of English. But I was able to point to the photos on the menu when I ordered. I could also learn the names of foods this way.
This conversation with Vizquel dates back to the mid-90s. It was around the time my father was still living in Sarasota, Florida. He suffered a serious stroke in 1993. We had home care to help take care of him. My brother Tom lived nearby. I have been to Sarasota at least monthly for several days during the last four years of his life.
I had forgotten about this Vizquel story until I started writing about the Waffle House this week.
The stroke not only paralyzed his right side and made him unable to speak, but it also deprived him of the ability to read. But at the Waffle House he could look at the menu and say what he wanted – instead of asking me to order for him like when we went to other restaurants.
When you go to the Waffle House you know what to expect. It is about breakfasts. These are meat, potatoes and fat on the grill. It’s the sound of bacon sizzling and waitresses screaming orders.
These are waffles. It’s about sitting at the counter or in a small booth, watching people cook your food.
A person at the counter of a Waffle House area. Photo by Terry Pluto / Cleveland.com
One Christmas I was with my father in Sarasota. He wanted to go out to eat. But where?
I remember a rough looking guy with prison tattoos behind the grill. I remember a waitress who looked very tired, exhausted from life.
I remember a few other lonely souls scattered around. It was near a hospital and it was easy to imagine some of the lonely people thinking of someone they had just visited, someone in terrible shape.
And I remember the waitress smiling when I rolled my dad in his wheelchair. I remember the cook heard the waitress order, looking up at my dad and saying, “Come on! “
I remember some people at the counter saying “hello”, others nodding in our direction.
It’s a good guess that if there was a waffle house in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago, Joseph could have taken his wife Mary there to eat.
They had walked over 70 miles (or perhaps on a donkey) from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for a census and pay taxes.
Evangelist Luke describes how Joseph and Mary about to give birth found themselves in what was essentially a barn with animals.
“She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes. She laid him down in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2: 7)
Other versions say “because there was no spare bedroom”. I’ll let the scientists take care of it.
The point is, the couple had nowhere to go. Plus, the first visitors to see Jesus were shepherds, the kind of guy who would feel very comfortable at Waffle House late at night.
For Christians, it is the story of the birth of the Son of God. The Savior of the world was greeted primarily by those who felt inadequate and those who later became his loved ones.
People like my dad, myself and the rest of us at Waffle House on Christmas Eve.
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