Bits and pieces

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

This may be one of those times that I’m repeating myself. We’re really tired and I feel a cold coming on, but when a deadline looms, one has few choices: Repeat an old column, gather bits and pieces of stories collected under the heading of “bits and pieces,” make something up out of whole cloth, or just relate one’s most interesting recent escapade.

You decide which is which here.

Tonight we’re in the motor home parked in the side yard of the home of dear friends, whose daughter Katherine was married last week. I hope I don’t disappoint if I don’t give you a great long wedding narrative.

There’s not that much to say when everything goes well. Everything in this one went off well. Everything was in place.

The bride is one of those young women who can barely stand still, over-endowed as she is with energy and eagerness. She dances when she’s standing still and looks like a bride on her wedding day. Yes, of course, this WAS her wedding day, but I’ve seen her looking just as eager on a rainy school day.

So that’s the wedding story. It was modest yet elegant, the gown a spectacle made by an incredibly skilled family friend, flowers everywhere regardless of the fact that it was Lent, her groom good-naturedly allowing himself to be dragged around much as Katherine drags her dachshund around.

We said to him, “Practice this, Jon. You’ll need it. Repeat after me: ‘Sure, Honey, anything you say.’”

He caught on quickly and soon looked as excited as his bride. Well, almost. Although I was listening closely, I’m darned if I ever heard the exact “official” magic words, “I pronounce you man and wife.” The pastor had to have said that or something like it. Didn’t he? Didn’t he?

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Unlike the bride and groom who spent their first night together at a nice hotel in Savannah, before boarding an airplane for a German honeymoon, Dave and I are sleeping in our little RV in her parents’ yard. We do this a lot, and truly prefer it to a motel.

This is our home wherever we take it, although the price of campgrounds has gone out of sight. If we’re sightseeing, we aim for public lands, i.e., state or federal parks, where Dave’s “Golden” password gets us in for half price.

But when we simply need a safe place to get a night’s sleep, we pull into a Wal-Mart parking lot. There are not many dark corners in a security-patrolled Wal-Mart parking lot, but we usually sleep well anyhow, after a day’s driving. And unless we’ve hit their weekly rumble, the local youngsters seldom bother us by racing around the lot.

It’s a smart move on Wal-Mart’s part. Naturally, there’s going to be something you need to run in and buy, and I’ve never known anyone to get out of a Wal-Mart without leaving $10 or $15 behind.

(Note: You won’t find the welcome mat out at every Wal-Mart. If a municipality will not permit overnight parking in a Wal-Mart’s lot, that supersedes company policy, of course., and, of course, Peachtree City does not permit the practice.)

Several years ago, when we were attending a couple of Pennsylvania reunions, we stayed in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart. This one was in Lebanon.

I must have been through Lebanon before, but I didn’t remember its interesting, if decrepit, architecture. Row-houses with graceful architectural details, mostly in decline - I suppose Lebanon was an old mining town, or so it appeared. I noticed an old two-story gray stone (and gray is the predominant “color” here), probably built in the 19th century, flat canopy under which the defunct detritus of a quicky gas station sags - it’s been a long time since anyone rolled in there for gas.

One more thing about “Campground” Wal-Mart in Lebanon, Pa. There was an area of gravel, about 12’ x  20’— to impress the tourists? said one cynic. Maybe more inviting to a carriage drawn by a horse with a “need.” I guess we’ll never know.

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I’m sure you know that we celebrate breakfast at Waffle House  on Wednesdays, wherever we are. I’m not sure where I saw this - maybe in Lebanon. Someone gave it to me or else I found it several years ago, and since it doesn’t exactly segue into something else, here ‘tis, cold turkey:

Want to know the secret system that helps the cook keep track of a barrage of shouted orders? On a Web site for WH aficionados, a former grill op writes: “To this day, people still ask me how we do it, how we memorize them orders.

“Well, there is no secret to it. Everyone that goes into a Waffle House will see a bunch of plates on the cook boards, with mustard, ketchup, butter, and pickles on them. That is called the ever-so-famous ‘Marker System.’ Believe me it works, and is less stress on the brain.”