How To Do A Thanksgiving Pay Forward
f you notice someone sitting alone, or you suspect someone might be far from home during the holidays, ask them to join you.
I’ve now spent most of my life outside of the South – Wall Street called when I graduated from Ole Miss and since then I’ve discovered it’s far easier to leave the South than get back. For all of my career, lunch was at my desk, except in London where it was drunk.
SideTrack- The food in London is truly awful. Ever time the English take me somewhere to prove it’s better, it’s not. My theory on how the English came to conquer the globe was that they were looking for a decent meal and willing to fight for it.
I knew all about lunch in the South, meat-and-threes being my favorite. Back at Ole Miss and around Lafayette County, there were a dozen places for a plate lunch. One favorite was the local farmer’s co-op, another was the counter at a country store, you couldn’t swing a dead cat for hitting a place. Since school, I’d been expatriated to parts where chicken-fried steak, fried okra, yeast rolls, and turnip greens were a mystery.
In 2018 I took a job with MSU in Starkville, not just for the plate lunches, also to hunt, tailgate and have a beer at Hobie’s. Which was a good thing, it seems like since I’d been gone the plate lunch places had need replaced by national chains.
Vowel’s was one grand exception. Here was a full-sized grocery store that served country-style breakfast and a plate lunch. Only problem? Dinner (lunch) is very popular, it isn’t fast food, and sometimes they run out of cobbler, so get there before 11:30. Yes, there will be a line.
Anyhow. I’m at Vowel’s my first week in Starkville. I’ve met everyone standing in line and the ladies behind the counter too. By the time I pick out chicken-fried steak and a double portion of peach cobbler, I’m grinning like a possum. I take my prize plate over to the dining area ready to eat on a bar stool by myself.
Before I can sit down, a table of older gentlemen looks to me and says, “Don’t sit on that high-chair, come join us.” Introductions all around.
Those people didn’t know me from Adam’s house-cat, they saw I was alone. I’ve lived in LA, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, and London. That kind of natural hospitality is Mississippi. Best lunch I ever had.
Now I look for opportunities to pay those gentlemen back. If you notice someone sitting alone, or you suspect someone might be far from home during the holidays, ask them to join you.
Check out these books on Amazon
[image error] [image error]
[image error] [image error]
[image error] [image error]
