Early one winter morning some years back my husband and I decide
to brave the harsh conditions of ice and snow left over from the day before to go out for breakfast. We clear off our
car and head for the main roads, watching for an OPEN sign at any of the local
restaurants. We didn’t have far to go to
find a Waffle House.
In case you don’t know, Waffle House makes the best hash
browns and eggs over easy. Perfectly
cooked and as good as any New York diner. So in our heavy winter coats and boots, we shuffle in alongside the regulars who are
already gathering in their favorite booths, sipping coffee and making small talk. We make our way to a booth at
the back.
We later learn that this particular Waffle House was built in
1973 and is one of the oldest in the area.
All these years, the structure has neither been updated nor the parking
lot properly maintained, which by the way had mammoth pot holes the size of basketballs.
We knew this because we overheard the manager complaining about it, and he was
obviously not a complaining kind of guy as we observed him with the customers,
laughing and joking. Believe me, he was
the bright spot in the place.
We seat ourselves in a booth and right away Carol, our server,
comes over to hand us our menus and fill our coffee cups. Carol appears middle aged. She has clear blue
eyes and straight red hair pulled back tight in a ponytail. In her deep gravely
southern voice, she calls out our order to the cook, “Waffles two one over medium single hash browns smothered plain wheat on
a plate!” My ever inquisitive
husband immediately strikes up a conversation by asking Carol for a translation
of the secret waffle house code. The
conversation takes off from here.
Despite a rough life, Carol is not a bitter person by any means. She tells us she has worked at this same
Waffle House for over 27 years, except for the 17 months she took off after her
twins were born. She raised four children (now grown), working night shifts
so she could be there to wake them up in the morning and get them off to
school. She’d catch a few hours of sleep
and be there when they got home from school.
If possible, she’d sleep a few more hours before heading off to work
again, waiting on tables and shouting out orders. She accomplished all this in spite of a no
good alcoholic husband who contributed little but heart ache. However, this was all in the past and now the
real story begins.
Last year when four hurricanes swept across Florida, virtually
everything was closed including grocery stores and restaurants. Believe it or not, in order to serve people
in need, Waffle House flew Carol and her fellow Waffle House “missionaries” to Orlando
to initially close down and, as soon as the storms passed, open back up Waffle Houses all over Florida. She and other Waffle House employees worked
around the clock with practically no sleep and no days off getting restaurants
up and running again so they could serve the public need, truly a rare act of
beneficence in the corporate world.
After the storms passed and Waffle Houses re-opened in Florida, there were long lines of customers out the door waiting to get inside. Carol told us how one
of her customers, a mother, had tears in her eyes as she related how she and
her three hungry children drove over 100 miles looking for food and how
thankful she was at last to find Waffle House open. Carol related story after story of similar
circumstances and of how customers gave her twenty dollar tips because they
were so grateful and relieved to find food.
She confessed to having gone out behind the dumpster once or twice to
have a good cry.
Isn’t it strange how sometimes we find heroes hidden in the most
unlikely places. And what a surprise to
discover one right in our midst, serving a cup of coffee, wiping up a spill, or handing out an extra napkin. All I can say is, Thank you Carol, wherever
you are, for your untiring service to ordinary people everywhere. And Thank you to all the Carols of the
world, you know who you are.
.
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