If You Make a Mistake, Make It in My Favor

When you are little, you always imagine something or someone will always be around. Your innocent mind cannot fathom losing that treasure.

And then you grow up.

And you lose that someone or something.

Windy Hollow Restaurant was that something for me, lost just a few days ago to a kitchen fire that blackened & scarred the landscape.

I cannot remember when I DIDN'T go to Windy Hollow after church on a Sunday when I was little. It was routine. If it was summer, Dad would pull out the Corvette, we would all pile into it (back when TJ & I could both fit in the back), & off we would go in the little robin egg blue car. Then there were the times when TJ & I would fight over who got to ride the motorcycle with Dad, while the other was pushed into the car with Mom. It typically ended with a flip of a coin. The winner would don the yellow helmet, climb up in front of dad (until we were too big, then we sat on the back), & out the drive we would go, racing the others to brunch.

Then there were the times when it seemed like everyone went out with us & we couldn't sit at our round table for 4. The kids would hurriedly eat, then find trouble in various places. Our favorite haunt was behind the restaurant or in the little area right as you came into the restaurant. It was most often where we could find the kittens. We would sit & play for hours with them, while the adults were inside discussing some boring topic. When we were tired of the kittens, we would move to the fountain where we would splash one another. Or, we would climb on the bull. Once the parents had finished 'grown up talk' & were ready to leave, there we would be, perched on the bull like little birds twittering for attention. Dad would come over & we would slide off the bull's nose into his arms. Now adays I can climb up & slide down on my own & land on my own two feet ... sometimes.

And not to mention the food. I think it was there that I fell in love with grits, heaping with butter & some yummy biscuit gravy. And donuts! Though I don't particularly care for them anymore. And chicken legs for breakfast. And pancakes! Fried potatoes ... BANANA PUDDING! With mom getting the yucky meringue, of course. Country ham, though I didn't eat any. And scrambled eggs. And this salad that had marshmallows in it. I think it was a fruit salad. True southern cooking at its best! And whenever something ran out, I could pop my head into the kitchen & let Hal know.

Then there were the super cool things in the restaurant. License plates from EVERYWHERE, including one or two I had brought back to add to the collection. And postcards, from me of course. I guess the most recent one from Wales burned. And the old fireplace with the rocking chair while you watched Christmas movies or old westerns. Dad would go stand in front of it on a particularly cold Sunday and throw a log on it every now & then when it was dying down. I think I first met John Wayne at Windy Hollow though I couldn't tell you any of the names of the films. And of course there was Rudolph & Frosty every Christmas.

My favorite super cool thing, of course, was the cash register. It was antique. You pushed the little orange button on the far left hand side & "ping" it would open! I loved to sit on the stool behind the cash register, feeling all powerful & such. A rush for a girl who can hardly balance her own check book! And every time a customer would come up to pay & Hal was nowhere around, I would be more than happy to take their money for them. But magically Hal would show up & always say "Screbber, if you make a mistake, make it in my favor."

Well, I'm sad to say that someone made a mistake though the fire was not intentionally set. The mistake most certainly was not made in Hal's favor. Or in anyone else's for that matter. Though I haven't been to the restaurant since I graduated high school (a girl's got to get her sleep in on Sunday!), I know I'll miss it. I always thought it would be there. But I guess I was wrong.

Now all that is left of my Sunday childhood haunt is blackened beams & black ashes on an old abandonned road that mined the blackest of coal.