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WAFFLE HOUSE
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Robbi
grew up in the South and misses his Waffle Houses which they don't
have up North. They have Pancake Houses up North but a Pancake House
won't do.
As
for myself, when I was a child I loved the Pancake House. There was
one in Richland. It was the only restaurant I was taken to as a
child, so when I was around ten and got to go to a Howard Johnson's
I thought that was really special.
The
Pancake House. It had all those jars of different flavored syrups on
the table, which was nice, though I only had the regular (I'm
getting a peculiar sense of deja vu here). I remember on the wall by
the waitress station was a mysterious little sign that lit up and
showed a number. The number never changed. I wondered what this was
all about. I now know that the sign didn't work, but I didn't know
that then. It was simply mysterious. I stared at it alot, waiting
for whatever it was that was supposed to happen. Beneath the sign
was a cocoa machine, which was also something mysterious to me
because I was never permitted to order cocoa. I could have pancakes
and milk. That was it. So on cold days I would stare at the steaming
cup of cocoa pictured on the cocoa machine and to me it was very
mysterious that cocoa would appear out of this machine if someone
ordered it. Occasionally someone would order cocoa and I would watch
the waitress work the machine. This was something very special to
me. Whoever ordered the cocoa was doing something very special and
privileged. I had this idea that people who ordered cocoa were
traveling salesmen who ate out at restaurants alot and that they
probably ordered the cocoa without thinking twice about it, this not
being anything very special to them. It was just something they
liked to drink and since it was there they ordered it because they
were self-assured people who could do what they wanted and get what
they wanted out of life. Those really were my thoughts about the
people who ordered cocoa.
My
wonder over the mysterious llittle light at the pancake place was
the same kind of wonder I felt over the little lights above the
confessional booths when I was five years old and at High Mass at
the cathedral. I saw a girl go through one of those mysterious doors
over which was a mysterious light which now shown red, and I watched
and watched but didn't see her come back out. I became convinced
that behind the door was a stairway that led down to hell.
I
remember sitting by the window in the Pancake House and leafing
through my favorite book in the school library. I was seven years
old and loved to read about Norway. This book was about Norway and
had all these pictures of the fjords, and of the spare grassy
valleys of Norway filled with cows that gave milk that was made into
exotic things like real butter and cream and special cheeses. The
book was blue and there were alot of pictures of blue skies in there
and for a long time I associated Norway with the color sky blue.
Just
where does the word "waffle" come from anyway? Let's see,
Old High German, waba, honeycomb. Akin to web, which is akin to
weave. And then there's "waffle" from waff, which is to
talk foolishly or without purpose; idle away time talking. Kind of
like I'm doing now. Oh wait, get this. Guess what is a variation of
"waffle?" Wafer is. The unleavened bread of the Eurcharist
as used in the Roman Catholic Church.
Waffle House, the
church.
Assorted People
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