Breakfast at MawMaw's

One Good Tip Deserves Another

MILLERSBURG — Every spurnpiking adventure should start with breakfast at a ma and pa restaurant. MawMaw’s on SR 39 is as ma and pa as it gets.

It was right along the way to Bolivar, where I’d be camping a few days and pitching in to remove trash from the Tuscarawas River. I’ve passed it often. Always wanted to stop there but never seemed to have the time.

Time was not an issue that morning. Nor should it have been. That’s the whole point of spurnpiking.

After breakfast, I stopped at a rest area down the road to write about it in my journal. Sometimes it’s best to put words on paper before you’ve had time to digest whatever it is you plan to write about.

Here’s a taste:

JUNE 19

By the time the waitress poured my second cup, the liars’ table had adjourned. She cleared their table with a grain of salt.

A utility crew with enough guys to take up five tables filed out the door and scrambled to their big white trucks. which took up most of the parking lot.

A young man stepped out of the kitchen. I wasn’t sure if he was the cook, dishwasher, busboy or what. Maybe all of the above. He surveyed the dining room and spoke briefly with the waitress.

I wondered what was going through his mind … and hers. I can’t help but wonder about people working in places like that, about their lives, their aspirations, fantasies … reality. Was it any different from my experiences working food service when I was their age?

I left a good tip.

So did MawMaw. On the bottom of my check was slice of sage advice: EAT THE PIE FIRST.