The Booth at Waffle House

On the morning after the 2024 presidential election, I was out running errands when I found myself turning my 4-Runner into the parking lot of a local Waffle House. It had been years since I had eaten there.

As I slid into a booth, I wondered what on earth I was doing.

The restaurant was already humming with the steady rhythm of an ordinary weekday morning. A man in blue jeans and a Carhartt jacket sat at the counter beneath a faded baseball cap. He might have been a truck driver or a construction worker, someone beginning his day with hot coffee before heading out to whatever work awaited him.

Behind the counter, the cook moved between the grill and the plates, frying bacon and eggs, scattering hash browns across the hot surface, calling out orders above the clatter of dishes. The waitresses poured coffee, delivered plates, and greeted familiar customers with the ease of people who had performed these small acts of hospitality many times before.

I watched them and found myself thinking about the lives hidden behind the morning’s activity.

There were families to support, bills to pay, children and grandchildren to care for. There were long workdays, tired feet, worries carried quietly, and all the ordinary responsibilities upon which communities depend.

And then, suddenly, I understood why I had been drawn there.

As clearly as if he had walked through the door, I saw my father sitting across the booth from me. The realization startled me.

He had been gone from this world for sixteen years, but for a moment the distance between us seemed to disappear.

Waffle House had been one of his favorite places to eat breakfast. He belonged there among the working men drinking coffee at the counter, the veterans, mechanics, truck drivers, and retirees who preferred straightforward food served without ceremony.

My father was a man’s man. He was practical and no-nonsense, a veteran and a Civil Service retiree who lived simply and carefully during his later widowed years. He appreciated a place where he could sit down, order eggs and coffee, and eat breakfast for less than twelve dollars.

There in the booth, I could almost see him studying the menu, though he likely already knew what he would order.

The sweetness of his presence brought a lump to my throat and a sting behind my eyes.

Much of my childhood was spent living on Army bases in different parts of the world. My father had served in the Air Force as a young man during World War II. In later years, he supported the Army through the Civil Service, working on airfields and helping to keep Huey and Black Hawk helicopters in flying condition.

We grew up proud of him.

We were proud to be Americans, proud of the work he did, and proud of the country he served. As a child, I believed that his labor formed one small part of something honorable and good.

Like many people, I have lived long enough to see some of my early certainties become more complicated. Nations, institutions, and even the stories we tell about ourselves are never as simple as they first appear. History reveals failures as well as courage, corruption as well as sacrifice.

Somewhere along the way, my uncomplicated pride gave way to disappointment. The country I had understood as a child no longer seemed so easy to explain. With that disillusionment came a question I had never spoken aloud:

Had my father’s service, and the service of so many others like him, been in vain? Until that morning, I had not realized how deeply the question had taken root in me. But sitting alone in a Waffle House booth, surrounded by working people beginning another ordinary day, I knew the answer.

No. My father’s service had not been in vain.

The value of an honorable life does not depend upon the perfection of the institutions it serves. His labor mattered because he performed it faithfully. His service mattered because he gave years of his life to work he believed would protect his family and contribute to the good of others.

He was not responsible for every decision made above him, nor could the failures of powerful people erase the dignity of his own choices.

He got up and went to work. He maintained the aircraft placed in his care. He served his country as he understood his duty. He provided for his family. He protected his daughters. He lived modestly, worked honestly, and carried responsibilities that were not always visible to the people around him.

That is not nothing.

That is a life.

Perhaps this is one of the burdens of growing older: learning to hold gratitude and grief at the same time. We begin to see the flaws in the people and institutions we once idealized, but we also come to recognize the quiet faithfulness that existed within them.

The story of a nation is not told only through presidents, generals, elections, and wars. It is also told in hangars and machine shops. It is told by the hands of mechanics, cooks, nurses, clerks, drivers, and civil servants. It is told by people whose names will never appear in history books, but whose work kept families, communities, and institutions moving forward.

That morning, the Waffle House seemed to hold all of them. The veterans eating breakfast. The cook at the grill. The waitress refilling a cup of coffee. The man in the Carhartt jacket preparing for another day’s work.

And my father, present once more in memory, seated across from me.

Today, on Veterans Day, I offer my heartfelt thanks to every person who has served this country in years past. Your service was not in vain. Whatever history may reveal, whatever failures may belong to governments or institutions, your individual acts of courage, endurance, sacrifice, and faithfulness still matter.

And to my father, James Edward Cross, I offer this tribute from the heart.

You were an imperfect man, as all people are. But you were also an honorable man, a loving man, and a good father. The lengths you went to in order to protect your daughters are legendary in our family, even when you were unable to explain your actions at the time. I respect your courage. I honor your service. I am grateful for the work of your hands and the years you gave to your country and your family.

You are still my hero. I love you always, and I am proud to be your daughter. Thank you, Daddy.

Rest in peace.