Gentle visitors, your humble Contributor resides just outside of Flyover Country -- an uncharted place that is as mysterious as it is foreboding as it is amusing to such people as frequently enjoy decaf soy latte macchiatos. These macchianistas only look down upon this vast land and its denizens as they jet from one coastal metropolis to another, sipping and making plans to conquer it one day. Although one can find no definitive map of this Country, it's boundary becomes apparent on the ground in just a short drive from the Household, as the uniformly unpretentious structures and inhabitants of the land come into view along the road.
It was there -- on the frontier of Flyover -- that your humble Contributor stopped for breakfast early Sunday morn at the fabled Yorkshire Restaurant. While mean in appearance, so great is it's nobility that it has own coat of arms -- it's moniker harkening back to the white rose of the royal House of York and the heraldry suggesting a line of bold knights in search of hearty food.
We pulled in, just short of the gun shop and smoke shop, and find a parking spot in front of the thrift store -- now under new management-- and alongside a beauty parlor and appliance repair concern. The Yorkshire, not to be contained, has apparently expanded into a now defunct eatery with a prominent wagon wheel theme.
The menu at the Yorkshire includes the usual selection of high-caloric, high carbohydratic, and high-cholesterolic delights commonly found in Flyover Country. Six varieties of breakfast meats alone, all apparently derived from parts of the same unfortunate barnyarder whose cartoon equivalent is aptly named "Porky." The final meat, scrapple, as the name suggests, gathers up what is left over from poor Porky into a sturdy, friable loaf, and the liquid leavings find their way into a gravy, which might used to anoint a generous portion of biscuits. The chef helpfully offers this flavorful ointment in either a small bowl or a large bowl. All in all, it is a place of nourishment.
A waitress -- who herself appears well-nourished -- attends the diner diners, addressing us as "Hon," apparently since, though strangers, we are dear to her. She appears and reappears, checking on the status of and satisfaction with vittles and offering further hot libation, which, while more than sufficient, would not meet the standards of the macchianista barista just ten miles hence, beyond Flyover.
When the meal is finished, we push back from the formica table, sated and ready for action or inaction, as the circumstances of the day may require. The waitress presents us with a parchment scribbled in Flyover hieroglyphs, which we must take to the cashier, who deciphers the glyphs into an amount representing the fare for the fare. As we depart, the cashier bids us farewell and invites us to return soon, and, by the door, a transparent bubble further invites us to purchase, for a few coins, a gum candy slightly smaller than a billiard ball.
From this short trip, it would appear, that the denizens of Flyover Country have failed to comply with the new diktat that expeller-pressed oils and organic arugula must replace eggs and bacon. How sad, says the macchianista, that they continue to cling to past things, in their bitterness and ignorance. How foolish that they believed their forebears and even their living kin fought for liberty, rather than for the benevolent autocracy that progress now requires.
But, take comfort, gentle visitors -- when the soy-infused tyrants fully and finally invade Flyover Country, the citizens will likely take up the arms emblazoned in the Yorkshire's herald and clung to these many years, fortified by a good breakfast.
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