Breakfast at the Dixie Cafe

Breakfast at the Dixie Cafe is what Mark Twain would have called "sketches of American Life." Not that I compare myself to Mark Twain except that I too may not publish my biography until 100 years after I die, but I believe these stories do weave a pattern. Read individually, I hope you will find them to be enjoyable but when looked at as a whole, I believe they provide a point of view into American life. The same way individual blocks of cloth blend together to make a quilt.
Upon first glance, the reader might mistakenly think that I am making fun of Southerners. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The people from the south are as intelligent as the people in the rest of the nation. These same stories could be told about people out west or up north. I picked the south because that is what I know and love. And upon careful reading you might see a time or two when I might not appear to be the smartest one in the story. This is where "artistic license" comes into play. Truth be told, even though I was raised in the country, what I don't know about gardening would fill a library.

The characters that I describe are not individuals but they are in fact composites of people that I grew up with many years ago when I worked in a cafe much like the Dixie Cafe. They are also part of the people that I knew in the military and part of the people that I have met since I retired. Because the amazing thing to me is that these characters are universal. For example, I would bet that you know someone much like poor old Bob Dweedelham who was cursed at birth by having seen, done, or been the best of everything, at least in his own mind. I have had the unfortunate pleasure of knowing several Bob Dweedelhams in my life. I do not envy them as they are avoided wherever they go and never know why. It is a curse to be greatly feared.

The other amazing thing about these sketches is that the more strange or unlikely a story seems to be the closer it is rooted in truth. For example, the frog gigging honeymoon actually happened to a relative of mine. A close friend of mine essentially traded her husband for a house trailer and got the better part of the bargain. I have been to weddings where putting a hat on the mounted deer head was considered to be good decorating. And for those who have never tried it, sweet tea and gooseberry pie are never to be mixed. All of the stories are fictional but there is a basis of truth in all of them.

I hope you will enjoy these sketches of Southern American life and will recognize some of your neighbors and perhaps a little of yourself in them. If you've never travelled to the South, then you are missing one of the great pleasures in life. As they say around here, "Y'all come an' visit us some time now, ya' hear?"