Here is a story that Ruth Ann has asked me to share with you all. In 1983-84, my cousin and I had just finished preparing a new cafe in Mobile, Alabama to open. It was called The Cock of the Walk, and it opened on January 1, 1984. The name came from the old Riverboat days of the 1800’s, when the meanest, baddest dude on the Riverboat was called the “cock of the walk.” I had been hired on as a waiter, which was an easy gig because the only food the restaurant specialized in was the best tasting filet of farm-raised cat fish you will ever put into your mouth, along with a side order of fried green dill pickles. So, a waiter didn’t have to memorize too much from a menu. I wore a black felt, wide-brimmed hat with a goose feather sticking out of the side, a red long puffy sleeved shirt with long draw strings, and black pants and shoes. The hours were from 5:00 to 10:00 during the dinner time hours. Our bread and butter, as the owners explained to us waiters, was this jalapeño cornbread served from a black cast iron eight-inch round skillet. The whole novelty behind us waiters making good tips would come down to how good we were at flipping our cornbread into the air and catching it again in the skillet. We quickly became masters of the game, and once we got that down we started flipping the bread and catching it behind our backs. The customers loved it when we were successful, but it didn’t take long to discover that they loved it even more when we dropped our cornbread! Then we would quickly pick it up, brush it off and say: “We’ll put that back in the oven and use it again later.” They would laugh at our goings-on.  Whole families would return week after week and ask for their favorite waiter by name. It was, like overnight, we had become a part of their families. But, the show must go on and our act had to grow. So, we began to toss our cornbread from one waiter to another. They loved us even more. Finally, we came up with the four-waiter toss. It was a hot Mobile Friday evening, and there were at least seventy-five people in the front room of the restaurant. We had carefully placed a waiter in each corner, four in all, and on “GO” we would toss our cornbread to one another. It was a long toss, to say the least. But, one thing we forgot to account for. Since the toss would be a long one, it had to have enough height and speed to make it to the other waiter. And we had forgotten all about the ceiling fans between us. We tossed the cornbread, the fans caught it and shredded it and then showered it all over the customers. “Oh, no!” I thought, “we have really messed it up this time.” But the customers loved having cornbread shredded all over them. Everybody laughed and had a gay old time!

 Ahhh, only in America! Or, only in Mobile, Alabama on a hot summer’s evening!