What Waffle House Taught Me About America

Waffle House/Millersville, Tennessee

When I moved to the South more than a decade ago, I discovered Waffle House. At first, it was simply another restaurant that dotted the highways and back roads of the South. As I began traveling those roads more frequently, I found myself stopping at these somewhat iconic restaurants. Initially, I was unimpressed. But over time, I became hooked.

At first, I think it was the predictability that drew me in: the familiar menu, the familiar food, and the familiar atmosphere. Eventually, I realized there was another kind of consistency—the people who ate there and the people who worked there. Waffle House has a culture all its own, a distinctly American subculture, a kind of melting pot.

Every Waffle House has its regulars and its transients. No matter where you are, there are similarities that connect them both. But what has fascinated me most over the years is the culture of the people who work there.

On the surface, there is the language—one I eventually learned to speak myself when ordering: "Pull one sausage. Hash browns, scattered, well done."

Beneath that language, however, is something deeper: craftsmanship, pride, and an unmistakable sense of competition, especially among the cooks. From time to time, I have overheard them comparing how many orders they pushed through during a shift, or talking about the legendary cook at Store #537 who still holds the record. There are bragging rights. The veterans mentor the newcomers, teaching them how to keep pace with the relentless rhythm of the grill while maintaining Waffle House standards. There is pride in the work.

But sometime around midnight, usually between 12:00 and 1:00 a.m., the culture of Waffle House changes.

It is much like the ocean, where one world exists by day and another emerges after dark.

The late-night crowd is made up largely of people coming from clubs, concerts, and bars. Some are customers ending their evening; others are musicians and performers who have just finished a gig. Many are regulars, something made obvious by the easy familiarity between them and the servers who greet them.

The conversations change as well.

During the day, most conversations remain between customers seated at neighboring booths. At night, those invisible boundaries disappear. Patrons and employees become part of the same conversation, voices moving effortlessly back and forth across the counter. The counter still divides the dining room from the grill, but only physically. Socially, it might as well not exist.

I've photographed people in every corner of this country, searching for the places where America reveals itself without performance. Waffle House has become one of those places.

Around these counters, sometime after two in the morning, the labels people carry through the rest of their day seem to lose their importance. Construction workers, musicians, college students, truck drivers, nurses coming off shift, and people with nowhere else to be all find themselves sharing the same space, waiting for the same meal.

It's one of the few places I've encountered where conversation still moves easily across every line we imagine separates us. In a country that often feels divided, that simple fact has become something worth paying attention to.

The Boy in the Old Brown Jacket

This morning I read a comment left by a friend of mine regarding my post on Tribalism. The comment made reference to the “family” tribe, and the detriment that its breakdown - its disintegration has caused within society.

The family tribe is perhaps the most important of all tribes, as it is the foundation of one’s identity. As I pondered this I realized that [traditionally], within each tribe are the ‘sub’ tribes - family being the most important of these. If the family tribe broke down, the overall tribe would take over - assimilating the remaining members of that family into the larger family.

This too has been lost among much of society - especially within what is commonly referred to as the “inner city”.  When family units break down, gangs tend to take over the role of family - providing that foundational identity.

I can speak to this with some authority based on my own upbringing. The “pondering” I mentioned at the onset of this writing has illuminated my own experiences regarding this foundational identity.

I was put up for adoption at the moment of my birth. To be honest I don’t know if I was ever held, even for a moment, by my biological mother. Fortunately for me I was adopted within several months of my arriving into this world, by a very loving family: parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I was raised as one of their own. I was told early on, by my parents, that I was adopted. If recollection holds with accuracy, I was probably about four years of age. It was also brought up a few times throughout my life - especially in my mother’s final year of life. All this to say that it was never allowed to become ‘an issue’ - an “elephant-in-the-room.

When I was eleven years old my dad died, and two weeks later my grandpa died. These were the foundational male role models in my life. In many ways my entire foundation collapsed within that two-week period. I still remember, with great clarity, the deep sense of bewilderment that I experienced, as well as the deep sense of suddenly being untethered to anything. As I write this I can say now that the experience of being untethered can be equated to what I imagine it would be to be in outer space - outside of the spaceship without any cord to restrict my connection.

I felt so utterly alone.

I even remember specific instances; one where I just stood outside the house, as if I was disconnected from it as well. I was wearing this old jacket. I don’t even remember where I got it. It was well-worn, and sort of a muted plaid color of browns, and it had rather large buttons. I mention this because I relished in the fact that the jacket was “old” and “worn”. It was not new and nice - and this had great significance for me at the time - although I still have no sense as to why - nor did I then. I do remember feeling that ‘I didn’t deserve anything better than this old worn jacket’ - that in some way it seemed to be representative of me… I can still feel that jacket.

I remember, as well, standing in the back of the church, during Sunday mass - and yes, wearing that jacket. I remember just standing there not wanting to go in. As one passed through the main doors of the church’s front entrance, there was an area probably twenty feet in depth before one would pass through a second set of doors that opened into the church itself. It was in that area that I stood. A few times one of the ushers, who was seated in the back pew, would walk over to me to encourage me to come inside. It wasn’t because he was being kind, in fact it was the opposite… But each time I refused is encouragement. I just stood there with the same deep sense of ‘not belonging’. And the feeling of that old coat was just as it was as I stood outside of the house.

Life continued on, and my connection to this family was never left to any doubt. At no time did I ever feel as if I were not part of this family. Yet, in hindsight, there was a part of me that always felt disconnected - but this feeling was brought on by me, and not from the treatment of others. Would I have felt this disconnection had I never known that I had been adopted? I don’t know. Something tells me that the answer is “yes”, but this is only speculation on my part. Only “speculation”, but one that is based on a deep feeling within me that I was “disconnected” somehow - yet I must question if this ‘feeling’ only surfaced after the death of my dad, and my grandpa.

Later in life, due to various circumstances, my relationship with aunts and uncles, and even cousins, seemed to drift apart. First with those on my mother’s side of the family. In fact, it was after my mother died that this drift began… and this brings up another tangent of the family foundation:

When I was younger we would have dinner every Sunday - most often with my mother’s side of the family. It was a family gathering of the entire extended family. Generally it was a pot roast with roasted potatoes and carrots - still one of my favorite meals. This tradition carried on until my Grandmother died - by which time I was in my late twenties. After she died these gatherings ceased with somewhat of an immediacy. The cohesiveness of the extended family vanished, and it became fractured in many ways. After my mother died that fracture became even more pronounced and, in time, I lost contact with that side of the family. It was after my mother died that I also began to feel the sense of ‘not’ belonging.

On my dad’s side of the family I had maintained a close contact with my cousin Carolyn over the years. Eventually, when I was in my late forties, I reconnected with much of that side of the family as well. I was invited to the annual reunions - which I attended. And it was at one of the reunions that the subject of my “adoption” came up - not in a negative way, but more from a point of clarity. As time went on I began to feel as if there was a light chasm between us. I blamed this feeling on myself. Then there was a break in the cohesiveness. Suddenly I was set adrift by this part of the family - and to this moment I have no idea why. The connection had been broken by them.

So in pondering the comment that led me to this writing, I am struck by the importance of the “family tribe”, and the power that it provides us - or keeps from us. I mentioned early on in this writing about the formation of our “identities” that comes from the family tribe. For me, I had an identity that was formed by the family tribe. Yet mine was an identity that remained in flux - until it finally revealed itself as a false identity.

I once encountered the concept of a “stable datum”—the idea that human beings require a foundational point of certainty from which to understand the world. Whether or not one accepts the broader philosophy from which this concept originated, the idea resonated deeply with my own experiences.

The premise is that when this foundation is weakened, the individual can begin to feel as though the very structure of their life is beginning to collapse. I have witnessed this in many aspects of life, both in others and within myself.

Looking back over the moments I have described in this writing, I can see a recurring pattern: each time a foundational connection was weakened or lost, I found myself set adrift. I questioned who I was, where I belonged, and ultimately, what my relevance was in this world.

This constant flux has been a double-edged sword for me - one that has caused great conflict within me - and presumably throughout the entirety of my life. I have always been good with being a solitary being. I have embraced, and oftentimes even insisted on being left alone. Being alone was, and is, my sanctuary. Yet I also crave the connection of a tribe - the sense of belonging to something greater than just myself. This caving has manifested itself in many forms throughout the decades - yet each time I never feel fully connected to the tribe. I always feel that I am still the “outsider”. In some ways, I suppose, I will always be that eleven year old boy in the old, worn, brown plaid jacket who is standing outside of his house, or in the back of the church, adrift…