My sister, Sally, and her family have a house in the mountains of North Georgia. They travel up there from their home in Cobb County several times a month. It’s my sister’s “Happy Place.’’
Their view overlooking Lake Rabun will take your breath away. When the clouds sweep across the tops of the mountains, you feel that much closer to heaven.
As you’re climbing the winding road to their mountain home, there is no need to plug the address into the GPS. Just keep an eye out for their name on the mailbox. It’s D-A-V-I-S in black letters inside yellow blocks.
It looks like a Waffle House sign, because that’s what they call it.
When they bought the house a few years ago, they learned it was once owned by the late Joe Rogers. He was co-founder of the Waffle House restaurant franchise, which started in Georgia in 1955 and now has more than 2,100 locations in 25 states.
Rogers died seven years ago this spring. While exploring the house, Sally and her daughters discovered Waffle House memorabilia. There were even some maintenance instructions he wrote on a Waffle House ticket taped to a wall in the pantry.
The Davis family has now become mildly obsessed with Waffle House. Sally’s granddaughter, Evelyn, was born in December, and she has been indoctrinated at a young age. She has a T-shirt that reads: “I’M A WAFFLE HOUSE KID.’’
It won’t be long before Evelyn will be asking for her hash browns served one of the eight different ways you can order them at Waffle House – smothered, covered, country, chunked, diced, peppered, capped and topped.
Sally reminded me that I was with her the first time she ate at a Waffle House in November 2006. We went to the one at Arkwright Road exit on I-75 in Macon. There was another Waffle House a few hundred yards away on the other side of the interstate for hungry southbound travelers.