If You Didn't Want Grits, Why'd You Order Breakfast Then

This is a line from a Lewis Grizzard story about a Yankee who ordered breakfast in a Waffle House. In context, it's probably a lot funnier. Every time I go to Carrollton, Georgia, thoughts of the Greasy Spoon down on the four lane and across the street from Southwire (Scrapwire to those who worked there) remind me of that story. I spent too many nights/mornings after fraternity parties consuming their less than haute cuisine. But, that was forty years ago...

Last weekend for the second year in a row, many of us who were members of the Kappa Phi, subsequently ATO, fraternity gathered for a reunion during homecoming at the State University of West Georgia. It is amazing to me that forty years of gravity, consuming more calories than you burn, ignoring good lifestyle choices, genetics and otherwise "good ol' hard livin'" can alter appearances but it cannot dampen the spirits of a group of boys. Literally, within minutes of seeing someone you haven't laid eyes on in two score years, it is as though there has been no passage of time at all, almost. Yeah, it sorta looks like we're all attending a Halloween costume party where everyone showed up dressed as their grandparents, but that soon passes and through our Lenscrafters-assisted eyes we are all pretty much the same as we were then (with less hair and more belly, of course).

For the record, those pretty girls we dated then are still pretty girls and they are some damn lucky boys who were able to convince those girls to marry them. That is not to say that along the way the others of us were not able to find some pretty girls of our own, too. As a matter of personal confession, I believe with all my heart the girl who is my last wife is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. (Okay, so it took me a couple or three times to get it right, but I finally did. So shut up, and let's get on with it...)

One of the strongest memories for all of us was our fraternity fund raisers. This consisted of everyone piling into cars before sunrise on a Saturday morning and driving to the Krispy Kreme Doughnut store on Ponce de Leon where we would fill the trunks with a couple hundred boxes of warm doughnuts and then scatter to various points around town to sell them on street corners. On an average weekend we would pull in a couple of thousand dollars! Thanks to Krispy Kreme, we furnished the fraternity house with carpet, some of the tackiest black and gold velvet (French Provincial) furniture on earth, and we threw some of the most incredible parties you have ever seen.


But, it also was hard work, it bonded a bunch of boys together for life, and it gave us something to laugh about in our "long-in-the-tooth" years.