Kim and Garnet Get Married

When Mr. Whitfield saw me sitting on my front steps polishing my shoes on Friday, he knew that something was up.

And he was right. Garnet and I were off to get married.

I proposed on Wednesday at Montreat, the Presbyterian retreat center up towards Asheville. To me, Montreat is a special place. My father was a Presbyterian minister, and, over the years, our family went there many times.

As an adult, I have continued to go there. Spiritually, it feels like home. Garnet had never been to Montreat, and I worried that she would find it pleasant enough but not nearly as special as I find it.

She liked it so much right off, though, that she said she hopes that Sparkle Girl will go to college there.

We were sitting by the lake. A swan was swimming around. It was a nice touch, I thought.

We had just come from Black Mountain where Garnet had bought four truffles at a shop that makes the chocolate confections right there. She was eating Truffle No. 2 when I asked. So, from here on out, she will be able to say, whenever she wants, that it was all a big misunderstanding and that she was saying, "Yes!" to the truffle.

We wanted to keep things simple. So we decided to get married at the magistrate's office in Mocksville where her parents live.

On Wednesday night, we told Sparkle Girl and Doobins. On Thursday, we told my mother. After saying how delighted she was, she added that she thought it was about time. Then we drove out to Mocksville to tell Garnet's parents and to pick up a license.

That night, Garnet said that she thought it would be nice if I bought new black pants on Friday morning as long as shopping for them didn't make me cranky at wedding time. As for the tie, there was no question about the right one to wear - the one with hula girls that Sparkle Girl painted for me.

Doobins said that he wanted to look handsome for the wedding. On Friday morning, he picked out a pair of black shorts and a red shirt to go with the bright yellow Crocs that he wears everywhere.

He looked plenty handsome.

Sparkle Girl wanted to wear the gold dress that Garnet's grandmother made for Garnet when she was Sparkle Girl's age. It was the last piece of clothing her grandmother ever made, and Sparkle Girl looks very beautiful in it.

I found black pants in the first place I went in. The store had other colors in the same style, and, for a moment, I thought about continuing to shop. I came to my senses.

Back at my house, I sat on the steps and polished my shoes. The Whitfields - Pearl and R.L. were out on their porch. After I finished, I went over to tell them. Pearl said that R.L. knew something was up when he saw me polishing my shoes.

Their 60th wedding anniversary is coming up. R.L. said they planned to celebrate by getting married again. Pearl said that he was going to have to make some changes before she would think about marrying him again.

It was on to Garnet's house for Garnet to get dressed. She wore a black-and-white dress. Garnet's friend and neighbor Amy does flowers for weddings professionally. As a gift, she had whipped together bouquets for Garnet and Sparkle Girl and boutonieres for Doobins and me.

At Garnet's parents' house in Mocksville, we met up with our parents and my brother, Mark, and sister-in-law, Kim, who had also brought bouquets and boutonieres. So we had flowers galore. Mark is a professional photographer, and, as a gift, he began taking pictures.

We had a 3:30 appointment at the magistrate's office. When we arrived, two sheriff's deputies were there ahead of us. They brought in a young man with no shirt, lots of tattoos and hands cuffed behind his back.

I knew he was having a bad day. For me, though, it was as nice a touch as the swan. It made it all seem more real somehow. I just hoped that no one else minded. Garnet said later that she liked it, too.

After the sheriff's deputies and man in the handcuffs left, the magistrate invited us in. He apologized for the intrusion. Not at all, I said.

He performed the ceremony, congratulated us and said he would walk the papers across the street to the register of deeds office.

Back at Garnet's parents' house, my brother took more photos. When he got to the part where he wanted to set up specific groups of people, Sparkle Girl said she wanted to be in those pictures, too.

She said that she would get behind people so that, even though no one would see her in the picture, she would know that she was there. So that's what we did.

Then Garnets' parents took everyone out to dinner.

Back at Garnet and the kids' house, Doobins talked about getting married at the police station.

In the days leading up to the wedding, I felt peacefully happy. In the days since, I have felt even more peaceful.

At one point, I started to say to Garnet that we should have done this earlier. Before I said anything, though, I realized that, for me, this was the perfect time.

I like that we have Montreat and the swan and the truffles that made Garnet giddy and the pictures with Sparkle Girl in them whether you can see her or not.

Is This Seat Taken?

At the Revolve Film and Music Festival the other day, I was talking with some people waiting to go in to see one of the movies.

When we got onto the topic of experiences with sparsely attended movies, Emily Smith was reminded of the time she slipped out of work one sunny afternoon and snuck off to the movies.

Her eyes had not yet adjusted from the brightness outdoors as she floundered about looking for a seat, and she managed to plunk down in the lap of what turned out to be the only other person in the theater.

Doobins and the Baggie of Legos

Today's picture is courtesy of Mr. Doobins.

Doobins is in his Star Wars Lego phase, and a fine phase it is. He has shown a lot of creativity in coming up with his own starship designs.

From time to time, he feels the need for some new pieces to work with. Often, we go online, find something that looks good and order it.

When it's something official such as a spaceship, we put it together according to the directions once it arrives. It usually lasts no more than a day in the official form before he dismantles it and adds the parts to the storehouse of raw materials that he calls upon for his creations.

Every now and then I throw in a bonus gift that I don't tell him is coming. A couple of days after one such bonus arrived, Garnet said, he came in carrying a baggie filled with Legos.

When Garnet asked him what it was for, he said, "Kim gave me a surprise so I'm going to give him a surprise."

A little while later, Garnet came upon him sitting in the corner where he works on his projects. The baggie was empty and he was using the Legos that had been in it to put together a new spaceship design.

Garnet said she didn't say anything but, when he noticed her looking at him, he got really huffy and said, "I never did ask him for that prize."

If I'm just going for a laugh, I stop the story there.

The truth is, though, that I heard that story only after I came over and he handed me a spaceship that he had designed to give me as a thank-you. So somewhere in there, he reconsidered and followed his original impulse.

I sure do like that boy.

Frances Davis Branon Remembers Her Dad's Cafe

Before Father's Day 2007, the newspaper invited people in the community to write in, telling us about their fathers. Frances Davis Branon wrote a lovely piece about her father and the diner he ran. Because of space limitations, I was able to include only the merest morsel of her story in the paper.

Since I decided to start including pieces by others at His Dogness & Friends, I thought it would be nice to see whether Ms. Branon would be interested in publishing the whole piece here. She graciously agreed.

So here it is:

"My dad was a cook by trade, a short-order cook for more than 34 years of his 94-year life. He had other jobs at various times in those years but the cooking business affected our entire family's lives and formative years. Just to set the record straight, he was a cook not a chef.

"Dad was a cook and baker in World War II, trained in preparing large amounts of 'good grub' for the fighting men and women of that era. He could take powdered eggs, add a few dozen fresh eggs (when they were available), salt 'n' black pepper, milk, a dash or bottle full of Tabasco sauce, Worchestershire or Texas Pete, depending on the amount he was needing to prepare. The soldiers in the 'Mess Hall' devoured it due to actual hunger from all the duties, drills, activities and fighting since 4 a.m. roll call or possibly all night and day long.

"He was stationed in Germany. When the atomic bomb dropped in Japan, as so ordered by our President Harry S. Trume, the war was declared over! Dad, Floyd E. Davis Sr., was shipped home to begin his cafe business again in Brooks Cross Roads in Hamptonville, N.C.

"He operated the Davis Cafe prior to being drafted into the Army.

"When Dad left home, our mother was expecting her third child. My brother, Floyd E. Davis Jr. was 4 years of age at the time, and I was 9 years old. He closed the cafe and reported for duty in the United States of America Army. A sad, unsettling time indeed! This was the Second World War. We were very frightened.

"So, now back to the story of returning home following the declaration of 'The War Is Over!' Our dad purchased some previously used equipment, counters, stocks and tables in Winston-Salem and Greensboro. Following much hard work sanitzing, installing, scrubbing, painting, ordering food supplies and many local and state inspections, we reopened the combination Davis Cafe and Greyhound Bus Station at the intersection of U.S. 21 and U.S. 421. Hence the name Brooks Cross Roads, which was among the most highly traveled roads in North Carolina during the 1940s, '50s and '60s prior to construction of I-77 in the mid-1970s and the new four-lane 421 in the late 1990s.

"Now, for your close-working, yet enjoyable and life-changing experiences. Since I was the oldest child, at the age of 11 years, I helped work at the cafe, earning one silver dollar a week, yes, one silver dollar a week. I saved up $25 to purchase U.S. Savings Bonds. I would earn nickels, dimes and quarters in tips from customers for my personal spending money. At that age, I was old enough to take orders on my waitress pad and deliver them to Dad to be quickly prepared and served.

"I would carry trays of sandwiches, coffee, home-made tea, French fries, salads, cantaloupes hollowed out and filled with scoops of vamilla ice cream (Yummy!), fried pies, pound cake toasted on the grill with butter and served with ice cream and coffee, plus Orange Crush, Grapette, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, R.C. and Cheerwine. Also there were cartons of Coble white milk, chocolate milk and buttermilk. Yes, lots of men enjoy buttermilk with their meals.

"I also learned to dip ice cream. It was 5 cents for one dip, 10 cents for two dips, 15 cents for three dips and so on. You get the idea of prices in the late 1940s, eh? We also sold fruit and nut sundaes, milkshakes, the Heinz soup kitchen, oyster stew, clam chowder, home-made chili and made three gallons of slaw every other day.

"Also, get this! We peeled a bushel of potatoes every a.m. except Sunday because we were closed for church and rest. We prepared home-made French fries every day and we had bags of frozen commercial fries in the large freezer for back up when the home-made ones sold out. 'First come, first served.' That's what we said.

"As I learned and grew older, I was allowed to operate the cash register and make change, take telephone orders from tobacco farmers for large quantities for their workers - 20 hot dogs, 20 hamburgers and 20 cups of tea by 10:30 to 11 a.m. before the big three-to-four-hour dinner rush began.

"Some neighbors and workers had a 30-minute lunch break. For instance, the Duke Power workers, postal and doctor employees, Yadkin Valley Telephone technicians and workers, highway maintenance man and many other service station and insurance-office workers. We also had many folks waiting to ride the Greyhound bus, taking tourists to Roaring Gap, the fish hathery, Charlotte, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Appalachian mountains, beaches and other destinations.

"Truck drivers were loyal customers for all those years. The Lovette Egg and Poultry Company of North Wilkesboro, the eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina truck drivers ate at our cafe for 30-plus years. We packed paper sacks full of home-made roast pork, sliced home-made barbecue, chopped barbecue, which was pit-cooked.

"Twenty-five cents for all-the-way hot dogs, 25 cents for egg sandwiches, 25 cents for bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches, just to give you an idea of the 1960s prices. A plate of hamburger steak, barbecue or roast pork with French fries and a small salad, toasted bread and a choice of drink was anywhere from 90 cents to $1.20. It depended on small quantities for a lady or large amounts for hard-working men. Many times we sat out black coffee or home-brewed tea for the overnight truck drivers pulling a load up the mountains to help keep them alert, hopefully.

"Now it's 'Tea Time,' time to reveal the Davis family secret tea recipe developed by our Dad and Mom. The tea was Jewel Tea brand, with real sugar stirred in and thoroughly melted in the brewing process. When the tea was cooled down, add Minute Maid frozen orange juice and Minute Maid frozen lemonade. The proportions for each ingredient are up to whoever is making the tea. Now, since Mom and Dad are both in their Heavenly Home, I feel it is time to share the refreshing, healthy, satisfying tea. Try it, you may like it. Really, you might.

"Our Mother has been in Heaven since 1992, leaving Earth at the age of 85. Dad followed her in 2005 at the age of 94.

"Oh, yes, the third child born during World War II in August 1945 is now a family businessman in Richmond, Va., for over 30 years. His name is Spencer Cox Davis. Also there was a sister that joined our happy family in the late 1940s named Margaret Carol, who grew up in Hamptonville with all of us and now resides in Nashville, Tenn.

"All of we four children were reared, received more schooling at the cafe in addition to all of us being high school graduates of West Yadkin High School.

"The other siblings worked and helped some as I did at the family-owned-and-operated cafe. But the big difference was that I actually liked it. I enjoyed preparing the meals for others to enjoy. It didn't appear to me that my brothers and sister liked it like I did.

"Some folks are happy when they partake in eating their meals. Some wiggle their feet, shake a leg back and forth. Some do not wish to converse with others because they are hungry and on a tight schedule, so they keep right on eating and gulping. Then others prefer to eat and talk at the same time with a mouth full of food, meaning others are going to get a nice sight of 'seafood,' if you catch my drift. You also have the neat eaters, take a bite, chew, swallow, talk and continue this process until they have a 'happy plate,' meaning empty.

"When you are a cook, waitress, busboy or busgirl, as the case may be, it is very interesting to quietly observe people because people are funnier than anyone.

"I enjoyed the work with my Mom and Dade at the cafe to the point that I have been employed in several restaurants at different intervals during all of my working years. So, my Dad's and Mother's strong work ethic, honesty, fairness and good morals guided my life, my marriage and was instrumental in our three children's lives. It has also been a large factor in my eight grandchldren's lives, too. So Dad's influences go on and on.

"Dad prepared The Easter Sunrise Breakfast at Flat Rock Baptist Church for over 40 years simply because he desired to give back, pay it forward, serve his Lord and our Lord's people.

"So, yes! If you like your job, love to serve others, as our Lord and Master so commanded, work can be done in fun, rewarding and can be your hobby as well. As for Dad, Floyd Estel Davis Sr., was one brave, courageous, well-rounded and happy Workman!"

The End

Junkyard Adventures

Garnet's car made the front page of the newspaper.

During one of those nasty storms we've been having lately, a tree fell on Garnet's car.

During the storm, the kids would open the front door from time to time to check on the action outside. When Sparkle Girl looked out and said, "Hey, Kim, there's a tree on Momma's car," I said, "No, there's not," not because I disbelieved her but because my mind was not prepared to accept a tree on the car.

When I looked, though, there it was.

"You're right," I said.

At least that's the way I remember it. But, when I was telling the story to someone in Sparkle Girl's presence a day or two ago, she said, "I didn't say that."

Who did? She says she has no idea.

Oh, well. In any case, when we picked up the paper the next day, a photograph of Garnet's tree-topped car held a place of honor on the front page.

A smashed rear window and v-shaped dent in the roof right above the rear window proved to be the most notable of the car's injuries.

Garnet's car is a 1986 Toyota Camry so buying new glass for the rear window wasn't an option. Garnet's father - we like to call him Wild Tim - called around and found one at White's Service Station & Salvage north of Germanton in Stokes County.

I drove up N.C. 8, turned left at Andy's Mart and drove for another six miles along a quiet country road before coming upon a 50-acre oasis of junked cars. On the business card, it says, "Over 3,000 Salvage Cars & Trucks '30s to Modern."

A sign outside the door said, "Beware of Dog." At the door was a black Great Dane. After the junkyard closes, he may turn into a ferocious watch dog. But during business hours, he is quite gentle, although he did make it clear that I wasn't getting through the door until I gave him some attention.

Inside, the setting was so classic that it could have been a movie set. The TV sat on stacked wooden crates that bottled drinks come in. The sodas were kept cold in old-fashioned cooler. The packaged snacks - cinnamon buns and such - were displayed on a shelf above the cooler. Keeping an eye on the snacks was a sign that said, "Pay as You Graze."

Through a doorway into the garage area, I could see old license plates nailed one atop the other to one of the vertical supports.

When I asked the man who offered the help me whether he was Mr. White, he said, well, he was Ray. When I told him that Wild Tim had called ahead about a rear window for an '86 Camry, he went out front and retrieved it.

"How much did they tell this was was?" he said.

"I was told $50. Does that sound about right to you?" I said.

It did.

That was a Friday. On Monday, we took he car in to Ray's Body Shop & Wrecker Service, the business on South Main Street that my mechanic, Tim Falls, recommended.

The man doing the estimate said I would need to go back up to White's and get the chrome molding that goes around the window.

When I went back the next day and told Ray White's son, Donnie, what I needed, he nodded, climbed on a dirt bike, fired up the engine and rode off. While I sat watching the TV, one of the employees came in and pulled a freezer pop out of the refrigerator next to the TV.

Ten minutes later, Donnie White returned holding the chrome strips in one hand.

A couple of days after I delivered them to Ray's Body Shop, someone called to say that the car was ready. When we went to pick it up, the man told us that straightening the roof had turned out the be significantly more complicated than expected.

As I listened to details that included cutting a steel support and welding it back, I figured that he was leading up to saying that he was going to have to charge more than the estimate. That wasn't the case. When it came time to pay, he asked for the estimated amount only.

Later, we noticed that they had washed the exterior as well as vacuumed and shampooed the interior.

If you had asked me beforehand whether I was for or against the possibility of a tree falling on Garnet's car, I would have said that I was 100 percent against it.

But the experiences at the junkyard and body shop were certainly unexpected pleasures.