There isn't a whole lot of good that can be said about eating on the road. One fast food joint is very much the same as the next; that's the entire point of them. And on the highway, you don't exactly have a lot of choice in either the nature or the timing of your food. You can have a burger at the McDonald's off exit 181, or a burger at the Wendy's off exit 196, or you can wait another 20 miles and luck out with a burger at the Steak 'n Shake off exit 216, but either way, you're getting a lump of grease on a bun. There are some minor exceptions to the rule - Caspian insisted that I try the chicken planks at Long John Silver's, and I had to admit that the fishen (as I called it) was more tasty than poulty from a seafood place had any right to be - but generally speaking, you take what you get.
That holds especially true in the less populated parts of the country, like for instance Michigan. So, when I looked at the clock on my drive back from visiting Caspian and saw that it was around 6pm, I pretty well knew what I would be having for dinner. I even knew which McDonald's I'd be dining at, I remembered driving past it on the way down.
I was actually off the interstate at that point, jogging east on M-55 to pick up 127/I-75. And about halfway along, I passed through the little community of Lake City. It was full dark by then, but I had seen it in daylight going southbound: nice enough place, the kind of town where the main street is actually called Main Street and every business worthy of the title has footage on it. I passed a Dairy Queen, closed for the season. Then just past it I saw a big gravel parking lot, halfway full on a Tuesday evening in November, and beyond the parking lot there was a sturdy broad-shouldered slab of a building with the sign "Lake City Homestyle Cafe" lit up out front and a warm glow of light spilling into the street from the big plate glass windows.
I thought of the McDonald's two miles up the road, and I pulled into the parking lot and walked inside.
The place was busy, even moreso than the cars had suggested. Tuesday evening in November, two days before Thanksgiving, and it looked like half of Lake City had gone out for dinner at the Homestyle Cafe as a prelude to the larger celebrations to come. Families, mostly: a few adults with aged parents, several middle-aged couples with children. One enormous old man sitting by himself at a central table with an equally beefy bowl of chili in front of him, gazing around benevolently between bites, a king holding court over subjects no-one else could see.
There only seemed to be one waitress, pretty in an old-fashioned way, with dark straight hair and a thin pale face. She nodded at me when I came in, then scurried off to take an order, and I stood hesitantly in the entrance for a few minutes, waiting to be seated somewhere. When she made her way back to the front of the cafe she looked surprised to see me still there.
"You can just take a seat anywhere you like, I'll be right with you." Her voice was friendly, with the clean northern accent that sounds so much like our own, but there was a broad undercurrent of You're not from here, are you? riding underneath it. I slipped into a booth against the wall, and looked around.
It was ugly. Martha Stewart would have thrown her hand up and declared it just too ridiculously country-classic, all paisley and lace and varnished oak. There was something framed on the wall by my booth: the Lake City Agricultural High School graduation portraits, class of 1947, smiling all-American faces arranged in neat rows above the avuncular images of the staff. There was a salad bar nestled into the back corner, and a whiteboard announcing the soups (butternut squash, chili) and pies (apple, cherry, pumpkin, blueberry, strawberry rhubarb) of the day. The place smelled like coffee and meatloaf and scalloped potatoes. It was beautiful.
The waitress brought me a menu and a set of cutlery, apologizing for the wait. I assured her it was no problem, and I meant it, too. I quickly figured out what I wanted, caught her eye the next time she rushed by so I could place my order, then I settled in to watch the people.
I don't get the chance to do that often. I don't go out much, and when I do, it's always for a specific purpose: I go in, I get what I need, I leave. So, being able to just sit for ten minutes and quietly observe was a real treat.
One table in particular caught my eye. They were close to me, just past the corpulent king with his chili. Three of them, three generations: a weathered older man, a 30something hiding his retreating hairline with an aggressive brush cut, and a husky boy, who looked to be maybe twelve years old. The middle man wasn't the boy's father, I could tell that much. An uncle, perhaps, home for the holidays? A relative, certainly, who seemed to be intent on catching up. While I waited for my food, I heard him asking the boy a dozen questions about how he was doing in school, what position he was playing on the football team, what weight training exercises he was doing. He talked to the older man, too, about hunting the next day. He asked the boy if he was excited at being able to use a rifle on the hunt this year.
My dinner arrived - a magnificent patty melt, half a pound of locally-raised ground beef on rye with swiss cheese and tomatoes. My own personal blissfully smiling fuck-you to McDonald's. I ate, slowly, and before I was finished, the trio received their food as well.
The older man removed his hat. All three lowered their heads. And the boy said grace. I couldn't hear the words, but it was short and seemed both respectful and completely matter of fact. There was no discussion, they didn't even glance around to see if anyone was watching, and after the murmured "Amen" they fell right back to talking about shooting turkeys.
I've eaten at a lot of restaurants in my life, on three continents, everything from trendy little basement dives in Toronto to clam shacks on Nova Scotia's south shore to a dingy fish and chip shop in Alexandria, NZ, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone say grace in public like that before. It was oddly wonderful to witness: simple faith, displayed with the ease of long habit and comfort.
I polished off my dinner, paid, and left a $3 tip on a $6 meal. That made it almost twice as expensive as a McDonald's combo would have been, and it took an hour out of my drive instead of five minutes.
It was well worth the cost.
And the next time I'm passing through Lake City again, I'll be sure to stop by. I bet they do a damned fine breakfast.