Rafe's Compleat Southern Redneck Experience

[digitaldiscipline]

I referenced this in a friend's poll, which mentioned Waffle House, and felt it was time to re-share the tale, since it's been damn near eight years since it happened, and is still damn near as vivid today as it was minutes afterwards.



It really was a hot and sunny morning, as late may in Hattiesburg, Mississippi is apt to be. This was during the Great Migration South, from Brooklyn to New Orleans, and, the afternoon before, K and I had been halted in our progress by the combo platter of flat moving-van tire and torrential downpour, which is why we had overnighted in the Hattiesburg Motel 6.

Right across the parking lot was a Waffle House. Being, up until that point, northerners, the novelty of the franchise had not yet worn off for us, and, since I am a well-known and longtime breakfast-hating cretin, it was one of the few places that we both agreed on as a source for suitable grub. Thus sated, and prepared to make the final push to the Big Easy, we paid our tab and were making our way hotel-ward, to get the cats and vehicles, and get back on the road.

And that, my friends, is when every stereotype Jeff Foxworthy made his fortune chidding was proved to not only be true, but any sense of hyperbole was rendered moot.

A pickup truck of 1980's vintage had just pulled up, with a thirty-something couple and their son (who, at a guess, was probably seven) aboard. The couple were engaged in a vigorous discussion, obviously animatedly disagreeing about something. The child bolted from the cab, and was quickly collared by Ma's free hand (the other involved in gesticulating and taking puffs on her cigarette) while she continued to give Pa a piece of her mind in an accent so thick with the local flavor and her own het up emotional state that I couldn't understand a damn thing she was saying.

As she reached a crescendo, and the tailgate, Pa took a stride into her personal space and said, "Shuuut it. You mahnd me, woman."

She shut.

They walked quietly into Waffle House for breakfast, while K and I hurried away before the shock wore off and we started laughing.

To this day, if I facetiously want to get K's goat when she's in need of some gentle reigning in, I'll use that dude's words and inflection.

Comments

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Hilarious.

Interestingly, my only Waffle House experience was also across the parking lot from a Motel 6. (Eating at a Waffle House at least once was on my to-do list when we visited GA and SC).

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure there's an arrangement where there's a Waffle House in proximity to most of the Motel 6s in the south.

[katestine.livejournal.com]

I think I'm more boggled by the idea of WH being suitable grub. Fer realz? I used to hate breakfast food and found it difficult to find anything to eat when I was there.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I will eat potatoes as long as you don't bury them in cream sour cream, excessive cheese, or too much creamy anything.

I am not a breakfast person. Seriously, "bacon and bagel sandwich" is fancy and adequate by my usual standards. The "confused eggs with ham and salsa" thing is a new development.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Also, it is cheap and fast, and when I'm four hours from the end of a twenty hour trip (Brooklyn to New Orleans by way of Buffalo), I just want to fucking get it over with.

[david-deacon.livejournal.com]

How far south did you have to go before grits became the starch on the plate instead of hash browns?

Also, if you want redneck stereotypes, forget Jeff Foxworthy. Try Unknown Hinson:



"Ah want yer luuuuv . . . onnn commmand! It's Communism if yew don't . . . obeyyyy!"

On the other hand, your redneck was a genuine Son of the South, not a parody.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Having never eaten, nor had the desire to eat, grits, I couldn't say. The greasy spoon around the corner from my house offers both, but defaults to hash browns.

[critus.livejournal.com]

Cheese grits + Fried Catfish + Cornbread = Heaven

[etcet.livejournal.com]

This is why your arteries look like the inside of a toothpaste tube, you realize.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

mmmm.....cornbread....

[emzebel.livejournal.com]

Cheese grits + [just about anything] = Heaven

So long as they are real grits, not the instant stuff.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

It's not a how-far thing. There's no "instead of." Grits, though, are easy to cook at home, much easier than hash browns, so I think maybe potatoes are preferred at restaurants.

I ate a steady diet of grits as a kid. I'm not a fan of sweet grits, as a result, but cheese grits remain yummy!

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

I grew up on the northern equivalent of grits, corn meal mush. Awesome with butter and syrup!