The silent three…

Louise and I were eating at a great restaurant Saturday night, The Chop House in Murphy, North Carolina. If you’re in that area it is a real treat to eat there. It is a 45 to 50 minute place and the prices are very reasonable for what you get.

We felt so bad, the family that sat close to us was comprised of three people who never spoke. Instead, they all played with their iPhones the entire time.

NO ONE ever made eye contact or spoke the entire meal. If they were that way in one of the finer places to eat in the South what is home life like?

My dad would have thrown all the phones away and told them to learn to love one another. Friends, I was blessed to be brought up in a time when meals were fun.

I will be the first to say if Auburn, Alabama or Georgia was on at lunch time the TV could be seen, but that would be going against everything dear to us if we missed one of those games. I’m saying that to say, we did enjoy our meals with either talk or football in the background.

Guess what, if you see me at Burger Whatever with grandchildren you can bet there will not be a cell phone for everyone. I promise that! We will enjoy the MOMENT!

When I grew up I always said “yes sir” or “no sir” to all my dad’s friends. We listened a lot back in those days, but we were lucky.

Mr. Henry Neal was the funny one in the crowd, Dr. Turner loved his bird dogs, Mr. Robert Taylor was a real man’s man, Dr. Holder, Jimmy Daniel and Dr. Bailey were the perfect gentleman and they also loved their bird dogs. The one all of us boys were scared of was J.W. Stephens. If he did half the things in the war he said he did he was a bad man.

All of these fine men were World War II vets. Between horses and dogs I was around them a great deal growing up. All of these men meant what they said and you did not ask twice. If they told you to be there and that we were leaving at 8 a.m. they did not mean 8:10.

Loved every moment with that group of men. Yes, I was very lucky growing up with a group of real men.