As you may or may not know, Uncle Bubba gets around. Just the other day he saddled his hawg and set out for wherever the road might lead. That’s the beauty of the South; one can ride this time of year without fear of frostbite. Anyway, after a eating up a long straight stretch of highway Bubbie rolled into a small town and gassed up. Across the street was the Homestead restaurant--a full service restaurant—with the parking lot full of pickup trucks. With few options and a hungry belly, Bubbie rode over and went in for a bite to eat.
Right from the start Uncle Bubba was a marked outsider. All eyes were on him as he made his way through the old building to find an empty table. There was a lunch buffet that appeared to be the main attraction for the locals, but Uncle Bubba was traveling light, so after finding a seat in the corner, he asked the young waitress for a sweet iced tea and a menu. She returned with the iced tea in a dirty glass and a smile as she flopped a greasy menu on the table in front of him. It didn’t take Bubbie long to pick out a grouper sandwich off of the short list of choices through the smashed crumbs and fingerprints. Eying his tea he surmised that it must be dish soap residue that clouded the clear plastic glass, or at least he hoped so, so he gave’er a sip. He glanced sheepishly around the room at the proletariat that surrounded him. There were family clans, related kin and their confederation or in other words most people seemed to know one another. He noticed that the fella seated to his right didn’t have a left ear. To his defense it didn’t look as though it had ever been there, and Uncle Bubba considered how hard his life must have been to live life with a defect such as that, whether he lost it or never had it. Had he lived without it as a child? Oh, how cruel children can be. He reckoned that nearly every time he visited this region he came across at least one person with a missing body part and wondered, “What’s with that?”
Uncle Bubba’s waitress finally returned and he placed his order. To his surprise she rebounded quickly with a grouper sandwich, dill spear and a side of coleslaw. About that time three thick necked men took command of everyone’s attention as they made their way to a table next to Uncle Bubba. One had on a sheriff’s uniform and shook hands as he lumbered through the maze of tables; the other two in plain clothes bore more resemblance to bulldogs than men and with less personality. The chairs creaked as they sat down and Uncle Bubba noticed, as I’m sure everyone else did, that they all were packing heat. Do you need a pistol at a buffet? Is that considered a working lunch? I noticed the dirty boys from the tire shop sitting across the room eyeballing the lawmen with distain and had settled down from flirting with the young waitress. Yea, the life had been sucked out of the room and it was time for Uncle Bubba to settle up and get back on his hawg and ride. He waited at the cashier counter behind a man that was wearing a bright green T-shirt said FEMA (fix everything my ass) on the back in big white letters; grinned, paid his bill and made his way back out to the fresh air and sunshine.
Uncle Bubba cranked that marvel of American made steel to life and rode on but mulled the subtleties of the social interactions back in the restaurant. That’s America--the core of who we are; not the rich social elite that infuriates us in the news headlines, but the working class folks of small towns that are just trying to survive with some dignity and happiness. As Uncle Bubba winds out in fifth gear he feels a blog coming on. Yep, he needs to share his thoughts.
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