The Day My Daddy Took Me to Waffle House

Twenty years ago, my daddy got remarried to a woman named Susan. Susan’s daughter, Heather, went to college in North Carolina. Heather married her college beau, Chris. They settled in his hometown outside of Greensboro. They had two children. Any time my daddy and Susan would go visit them, my daddy would wake up in the wee hours of the morning to go to Waffle House for some peace and potatoes. By the time he returned, the house would be just waking up.

Up until a few months ago, my daddy and Susan lived ten minutes — three-point-five miles, exactly — away from me, in Maryland. Then they retired and moved down to North Carolina to live closer to Heather and her family. It’s a six-hour drive.

It’s taking me a minute to get used to this new arrangement.

I’m happy for them (most of the time), but I’m sad for me. I wonder sometimes if they’d have stuck around if I’d had kids — if my and Joe’s choice to not procreate tipped the scales in Heather and Chris’s favor. I comfort myself with cold hard facts about cost of living, climate, and other data that validates their decision to move. But then my heart takes over and reminds me that I just plain miss seeing my daddy all the time.

He and I have had an interesting journey to where we are today. From my early days through high school, I was scared of him a lot of the time — intimidated by the tall man with few words and piercing, knowing eyes who didn’t quite seem to know what to do with his two daughters. It didn’t help that he spanked us when we were bad, and slapped us across the back of the head when we acted up in public. We quickly learned to tread lightly around him, lest we face consequences for actions that were often the simple result of being carried away by childhood energy and immaturity.

Things didn’t get any easier after my parents’ divorce when I was 10; my mother’s constant vilification of him, her need to have us on her side, for me to take care of her no matter the cost — for me to replace, in many ways, my father — caused a deeper rift between my father and me. All I saw at the time was that he’d hurt my mother deeply, abandoned her and us, and he was mean and cold most of the time.

He never said a single disparaging word about my mother, even though he knew full well what she said to us about him. It’s only thanks to the clarity of adulthood that I see the power of his silence in those moments. Several years ago, at the start of a heartbreaking estrangement from my mother, I was at an incredibly low point. It was as if a veil had been lifted and I didn’t know what was real anymore — whether my childhood memories were true, whether my perceptions were accurate. My father — the Man of As Few Words As Possible — came over to my condo, sat down on the couch with me, and talked to me for hours. He still did not disparage my mother, despite the fact that she’d been the one to put that veil over my eyes for all those years, and I was finally realizing it.

The healing of my and my father’s relationship started when I was in college. A lifelong couch potato, I surprised everyone (but mostly myself) when I joined my college’s rowing club. I was by far the fattest and least athletic of anyone on the crew team, but it quickly took over my entire life (daily five a.m. wake-up calls to meet a bunch of people to go rowing in the dark will do that to you). I dropped 30 pounds freshman year and gained friends and a love of physical exercise.

My father came to all of my regattas. Every single one. An avid photographer, he snapped photos the entire time. The week after an event, he’d drive the hour-and-a-half to my college to drop off the photos and take me out to dinner. He printed doubles of everything and put them in big flat boxes. I’d go through first and pick out the photos I wanted, then send an email to the rest of the team: “Pics are here — come and get ‘em!”

Looking back, I think of the time and expense he spent doing all of this, and I smile with gratitude.

One thing my father and I have always had in common is a love of food. We’re Treusdells — we plan vacations and get-togethers around the food. Don’t ask us what we want to do — ask us where we want to eat, and the day will fill in around it. When I was in high school (the awkward years for me, the bachelor years for him), food was Lipton soup in a mug with a tuna-fish sandwich on cinnamon-raisin bread with crisp iceberg lettuce, or Hamburger Helper, or dinner at his favorite Greek place near his apartment in Northern Virginia.

But food was also peanut soup at the King’s Arms Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg, dinner at the rooftop restaurant at the Kennedy Center before a show, or our annual trip to the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington, D.C. after seeing the National Ballet perform The Nutcracker at the Warner.

Once he married Susan, we adopted her family tradition of Sunday dinner. He’d alternate cooking duty with Susan’s brother-in-law, Butch. My daddy would make things like roasted rosemary chicken breasts, pork tenderloin, or my favorite — pot roast with mashed potatoes and carrots, served with homemade gravy, usually accompanied by apple pie for dessert (he insists to this day that he doesn’t bake — he just makes apple pie). My daddy’s Thanksgivings are the sage-stuffing of legend. He makes a leg of lamb for Easter (and a delicious Guinness chocolate cake).

Sunday dinners are where we really became close — the sort of closeness you can only achieve with time and space for the mundane. I think he’s relieved that I’m an adult — judging from the stories he’s told me and that I’ve heard from his siblings, I’m pretty sure he’s been an adult since the day he was born. Sunday dinner topics range from politics (he’s a staunch Libertarian) to Star Trek and Harry Potter to physics to the Trials of Being a Grown-Up. I have had many a moment where I sit between my two favorite men in the world — my daddy and my husband — and have been utterly, supremely content. My daddy respects that my life is mine to live and that I am my own person, and I do the same for him, which means that I will now drive six hours as often as possible to get a hug from him and talk about nothing at all.

I’ve done that this weekend, for the first time since he moved to North Carolina. He’s been on his own for most of it because Susan kicked off her retirement with a months-long scuba-diving and friend-visiting excursion to the South Pacific and Australia. Before this weekend, I saw them once since they moved, when they came up for a weekend and stayed with me and Joe so they could take care of some business (and my daddy could visit the D.C. fish-and-chips establishment he’s frequented for 40 years).

This weekend, I’m staying at Heather and Chris’s house, which means lots of quality time with them and my nephews, who I adore. They’re unicorn children — raised with minimal screen time and maximum exploration time. They have an innate curiosity, kindness, and sensitivity that only comes when you experience the world with all of your senses. I gladly serve as their fun, kinda-kooky aunt.

I drive the 20 minutes or so to my daddy’s house after seeing the boys off to school. Yesterday, my daddy and I had breakfast at a place called Tom’s Diner, then spent a few hours at his house cutting styrofoam into perfectly measured pieces that fit the tops of the kitchen cabinets, so he could put knicknacks and other things on top of them. Then, we went around to various recycling facilities dropping off the styrofoam remnants at one place, broken-down cardboard moving boxes at another, and old electronics at yet another location.

I think my daddy’s relieved that I don’t need to be entertained; it’s all an Adventure with My Daddy — even the dump-visiting parts.

This morning, we’re going to Waffle House for breakfast. (Congratulations, you made it to the part of this post that actually talks about Waffle House! Good for you!) Despite my love of breakfast food, I have never been to a Waffle House. I’ve been intrigued by them for a while now, though, since listening to an episode of the Flightless Bird podcast in which the host interviewed the marketing person for Waffle House, and she described the chain’s formula for success and the little tricks of the trade they employ to keep both their workers and visitors happy. I was also fascinated to learn about the “Waffle House Index,” used by meteorologists, FEMA, and the general public to gauge the level of destruction during and after a storm. (To sum up: If Waffle House is closed, it’s a very bad sign.)

As we pull into the Waffle House parking lot, I’ve just finished telling my daddy about my first time dining at a Michelin-rated restaurant (my cousin, who works in the restaurant industry, had treated me to a tasting menu at Albi when she’d been in town a few weeks prior). The irony is not lost on me. I am beyond excited to finally eat at Waffle House — and with my daddy, no less.

We enter and are greeted (he’d told me before we came in not to be thrown off by the immediate friendliness) by the staff. I immediately notice that it looks like what I understand a Waffle House is supposed to look: a single row of seating, ranging from low-counter seating to high bar-type seating to booths, all parallel to the open-view cooking/prep area. We take a seat at a booth and I take in the brilliance of the cutouts at the end of each booth which enable the servers to stay in the cooking/prep area the entire time. It’s genius — they don’t have to waste time running around tables or between rows of seating. They can get to every customer by walking in a single line, right next to where the food, drinks, and other supplies are located.

My anxiety-ridden mind was a titch nervous about the ordering process; I’ve heard about the “Waffle House lingo” used when ordering, among other things, their famous hash browns. Luckily, the laminated menu was very helpful — it provided the lingo along with the definition of said terminology. It took me approximately two seconds to decide that I’d be getting my hash browns smothered (sautéed with onions), covered (with a slice of American cheese on top), and diced (with diced tomatoes). The server brings me my coffee and my daddy his unsweetened iced tea, and we place our orders. He gets double hash browns and I am immediately jealous and regret not ordering double hash browns for myself.

When the food comes, I really regret not getting double hash browns. They are delicious and perfect — crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. They’re the perfect cut, too. Not too thick, not too thin, not too long, not too short. They’re the Goldilocks of fried potatoes. The eggs and the bacon taste like I’ve made them myself — I can’t decide whether that impresses me or makes me sad that I’m paying (well, my daddy is paying, because he never lets me pay) for something that tastes like home. Either way, I’m happy.

I’m happiest of all because I’m sitting across from my daddy, who, since retiring, has stopped shaving his beard and started wearing suspenders and flannel shirts. With that mischievously intellectual twinkle in his eye, he looks like an overeducated Santa Claus on his day off. Retirement suits him — he seems more relaxed, more free. He tells me that sometimes he goes out driving “just to look around.” I’m proud of him for uprooting everything he knows to come live in a completely new place. It’s a lot to reorient yourself geographically, emotionally, and employment-wise, all at the same time. I think he’s doing a good job of it.

Today, we’re eating breakfast and talking about our upcoming trip to IKEA, the various laws being put forth regarding transgender people and bathrooms, and whether my daddy will be able to bring my nephews here for breakfast (they have several food allergies). We’re both excited about IKEA, have vastly differing opinions about the transgender laws but discuss the issue with civility, and later learn that yes, the nephews can eat at Waffle House.

This makes my daddy happy. I am happy, too.

This is new for us both, but I know it will work out. Things will be okay. It’s a new adventure. I won’t see him as often, but I have known for years now that no amount of time would ever be enough anyway. Today, I’ll take Waffle House.