My stomach was growling the other day and persuaded me to pull in at Oak Plaza Restaurant for some good ol’ country cooking.
My cousin, the late John Wilson, used to say eating “country cookin’ made you good lookin’”, but apparently that passed me by.
The Oak Plaza Restaurant is an icon, an institution and an anchor locally. It dates back to the days of king tobacco and served countless scores of people from its 1958 founding until now.
As Bro. Virlon Griner used to say, there will be people eating at Oak Plaza when the Lord Jesus returns.
Maybe so. It has been a while since I have been a regular there but back in the day, it was my regular hangout Thursday afternoons.
One recent Thursday, I and my stomach decided to try it out once again.
It still has the same down-home, comforting feel. Stetson Bennett IV donning the red and black, points over the dining room. I feel sure he’s pointing in approval at the buffet.
It was just as good as I remember — fried chicken, biscuits, fried okra, corn, stewed squash, blackeyed peas, “nanner puddin’” — you name it, they had it. And, it was so good, it would make your tongue knock your brains out.
But, there is one thing I noticed that was different. It was just not the same. I don't suppose it can ever be again now.
The long table, the one by the cash register, was empty this day. It seemed sad, lonely, forlorn, tired even. Back then, they called it another name, suggesting the occupants of the chairs there were, well, let’s just say, not quite honest. I never intentionally told things sitting at that table that were not so, but as the late Stan Baggs used to say “If it’s a lie, it was a lie when it was told to me”.
When I first came to work at The Times, Oak Plaza was a happening place at meal times. If you were at the long table, you were somebody — a big wheel even. Royalty sat there. The King of Jot’Em Down his own self, the late Wendell Waters, usually had the end seat. His right hand men, his son, Jim Waters and Lloyd Anderson, were there along with regulars Joey Walker, Adam Hart, the late Fred Carter and the late Charles “Hold on to your Honey, you’re in Bear Country” Bowen just to name a few. They all sat there at one time or another during the dinner hour. It was the impromptu office and press briefing room for then County Chairman the late Mitch Bowen. Bowen and his wife, Norene, owned the restaurant at the time.
Mitch and our publisher Robert Williams Jr. didn’t see eye-to-eye about much and Mitch wouldn’t return our calls, so I had to go track him down and have an audience with him at the long table at Oak Plaza every Thursday.
There, I got all of the stories about the county commission you read in The Times every week. I loved the guy. He was quotable using words like “onliest” and “boo coodles”. He also grumbled a lot. “Why did you write down what I said?,” he would ask.
“That’s how this works,” I would explain. “You are the county chairman. When you talk, I write down what you say.”
I saw him interact with constituents. One citizen came to him once with a dog complaint. He claimed a roaming dog had bitten him and he wanted to know what Chairman Bowen was going to do about it as county chairman. The citizen was, no doubt, hoping the county would enact animal control. Mitch looked at the gentleman square in the face and said: “Why didn’t you bite him back?”
And then there was the time it set in to rain and the roads were like bogs and swamps. A lady complained to him loudly about muddy roads. It was pouring rain outside at the time. She demanded Mr. Bowen fix her road.
He looked at her directly and said gently: “Ma’am, you can’t grade mud.”
Several of the dear souls who once graced that table are gone on to glory now, but a few of us are still hanging around.
Maybe, just maybe, we need to organize us an Oak Plaza long table reunion. I'll save you a seat.
• Jason Deal is News Editor for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at jdeal@blacksheartimes. news.
