I refer to “A Place to Call Home” as my waitress song. Melissa calls it my Waffle House song.
That’s because I gathered most of it from my stint working in Norcross, home of the Waffle House chain. There were three or four within a five-mile radius of my office.
And I frequently ate lunch at one. Usually alone.
Waffel House waitress
If you eat alone, you can listen in as the waitresses talk. It’s seldom about men, as the Hollywood version of their lives would have you believe. It’s usually about their children or parents or money or work hours and conditions. They would like more hours, but their feet are killing them.
As a reporter, I’m a trained voyeur, an incessant eavesdropper. I’m all for wiretaps, as long as I get to listen!
As a songwriter, I fashion bits and pieces together from this fact plus that idea, embellishing here, subtracting there. It’s not always factual, but I think it’s truthful.
“A Place to Call Home” is not so much a particular waitress’ story as it is lots of waitresses’ story.
The Waffle House chain was originally conceived as an restaurant for travelers along the Southeastern interstates. That’s why even today most Waffle Houses are found off exit ramps.
There is a big difference in serving food at a Waffle House vs. a suburban chain eatery that caters to a business lunch clientele or a downtown restaurant that offers a finer dining experience.
Many of those other restaurants are staffed by young women, working between college and a career. Not to say they don’t work hard and aren’t due our respect. But there’s a world of difference in knowing your job is a temporary stopover on an well established road to middle class and realizing that working in restaurants built around interstate exits is how you will make your living, or not.
Most of the women at Waffle House work hard, and however much they make, it hardly ever provides a cushion. Miss a shift or a paycheck and some bill rolls over unpaid another month.
They live on a different edge of America.
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