truckstop meatloaf

One of the many hard lessons that a touring stand up has to learn is where to eat and where not to eat while on tour. Unfortunately for me, I never really took the time to learn this lessonand those lessons I did learn, didn't take and I continue to make the same mistakes. Generally you should avoid fast food, fried food, heavy carb foods and any truckstop food. The reason being that most, if not all of these will cause you to have digestive problems. If you eat this slop it just sits in your stomach like a rock and has no where to go and if you are sitting for any length of time as you are when you are driving from show to show, the food won't "pass" as smoothly as you would like it to and when it does, it's always ready to go and GO NOW, when you are forty miles from the nearest toilet. I can recall thinking that if I am able to hold this back long enough for me to get there and the toilet is nasty, I will kill everyone.

So, still convinced that I can eat with the big boys, I stopped at a truck stop for my noon meal. Truckstops are great sources of life. They cater to people who live their entire lives on the road and they know what those people need. Trail mix, heavily caffeinated drinks, speed, showers, telephones, towels, dvd players for your vehicle, girls, and a bar. I don't think they were taking comics into consideration when they built these businesses, but we share in their functionality with the hardier men and women of the big rigs. (if you want to know what touring is like, bands love to sing songs about it... turn the page, only god knows why, home sweet home, and a ton of country songs to numerous to mention)

The food at truckstops is designed for people that don't get a lot of health in their diet and don't care to. It's very fattening, cheaply made and pretty salty. It's a lot of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, instant mashed potatoes, thick gravy, a wilting salad bar with pudding and jello and some sort of steamed frozen vegetables that never seem to be in short supply. That's about it. Truckers love it! They can put away four or five plates of this bounty with a pot of coffee, nine cigarettes and a forty dollar lot lizard and still be on the road in less than thirty minutes. They have it down. I am nothing but envious. How they are still alive defies science fiction.

Why I choose to eat buffets is beyond me. I love buffets, but a truckstop buffet is the lower end of buffets. The ones that don't get a lot of the "big eaters" coming in to share in the bargain. But I was hungry and having looked at the menu and felt rushed to make a decision... Deep fried chicken fried steak and eggs with country gravy or buffet, I collapsed under the pressure.

I'm standing in line behind two truckers with their "Proud to be an American" tee shirts and their plates piled high with fried fish and Swedish meatballs. I am so amazed at the proficiency at which they are loading their plates and not spilling any of it that I don't notice a group of elderly people walk in and sit down. Well, most of them walked, some were pushed or were driving small carts with air tanks attached. Kind of a forlorn hope in a smoker's paradise such as a truckstop.

I loaded up my plate, mashed potatoes, corn, baked chicken(small fowl at least) and... meatloaf. I have never eaten meatloaf and I thought, what the hell... What is the worst thing that can happen? As I walked back to my table and was drooling all over my food as the powerful scent of MSG rose off it, I turned and noticed that the large group of senior citizens was sitting down at a table not too far from me. As I sat down, my thoughts left the gut rot of my meal and traveled over to the seniors. They were dressed up as if they had just left church. At their age, their presence at church would seem more like a desperate horny male ass kissing the doorman at a club to let him in. The women were in shoes that looked to be too tight on their swollen legs and the men were in clothes that looked to be stolen off corpses. They were all quiet. None of them spoke or made as much as a single sound. They just stared off past each other, out of windows or over to the buffet table. I took notice of one old couple that were both staring blankly toward me, not moving and looking stunned. As if they had heard something at church that told them their whole lives had been for nothing and they had it all wrong. They just didn't move. Stepford grandparents? No. I think I know....

I ate my meal. The meatloaf wasn't the nightmare that I thought it would be, but I don't see making a habit out of it. I only made one more trip up to the buffet for some cottage cheese that was sitting untouched on the salad, or healthy side, of the buffet. It's while I was up there, that the old man from the blank staring couple came up behind me. His wife holding his arm and pointing at food that she wanted. He loaded the plate with small portions that wouldn't feed a small mouse, at her request. I smiled at him as I reached for some yummy pudding. It took him a moment to register the gesture and then a grin grew on his face.

I drove away feeling pretty good about the whole thing. And this is why...

The thought that came to me as I was staring at the couple was this... As we get older the number of relatives we have gets larger but the number of friends we have gets smaller. This small group of seniors was a small group of friends. Some are gone to be sure, but they keep on trucking. Their relatives are probably not aware they are here nor do they probably care, but their friends care and there is no where those friends would rather be. Even the death of friends, however sad, does not deter them from living and enjoying what few moments that have left together even if their families have abandoned them.

Friends are a great asset to health where as family members you can take them or leave them. This was a Sunday meal with friends, a day usually reserved for family, which makes me think that these people are family. Joined together not by genetics but by time spent together in a similiar habitat. These people, forgotten by their families and know that friends are all that remain. There is nothing new to say to these people, they have shared it all a hundred times. They have shared the photos; all the photos of grand children, great grandchildren and long lost vacations... Done. There is nothing new here. Just the comforting company of friends.

This group of seniors, surrounded by the another group of people that don't know their own families, truckers. Truckers that live all alone and who are also surrounded by friends and family of a different nature, brothers in arms if you will. That is what this truckstop was, a buffet of people. People that don't serve well together so what you get is a selection of your own choosing. Take as much as you like. Visit as often as you like. It may not be what you want or the best, but it's what we have to offer. There is something here for everyone.

Those old people took their four bites of food and they didn't talk to each other. They just enjoyed the fact that they were around living friends of their choosing and that was enough.

The food settled well inside me. As I start this two week tour I need to be more cautious of what I eat or I won't make it to the other side of this long trek. I know there is BBQ in my future, perhaps another diner or two. I am headed to Canada for three days which means Tim's at least four times, but I do need to watch my figure... Otherwise I won't be eating any truckstop buffet with my old friends sixty years from now.