On hope

Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

I made cornbread the other day, and I never can make cornbread without recalling an experience I had when I was on book tour in Mississippi. My driver for two days was a man I’ll call James. He was in his 40s, thin, gentle in voice and temperament, accommodating in nature, and quick to smile— and when he did smile, he bowed his head to the side and hid his mouth behind his hand, geisha-like. He was a person whom a friend of mine would describe as “someone you want to sit right down and feed.”

I started out in the backseat of James‘s town car, as convention dictates, but we began jabbering so much —and so intimately— that I soon moved into the front seat.

On the first day, we drove through the countryside for many hours with the radio tuned to country music. Along about lunchtime, I asked James where we should go to eat. He said, There’s a Cracker Barrel not too far from here. Now, I like Cracker Barrel as well as the next guy, but I thought we could do better. I suggested that to James, and he said, Well, there’s a gas station close by where they have a restaurant in the back. It’s chicken fried steak, cornbread, turnip greens, pinto beans, banana pudding, things like that. Let’s GO!, I said.