Bruce

So, not to long ago Stacey and I went to a small restaurant in Claysville Alabama. We were on our way to a dinner in Tuscumbia Alabama with the Southern Foodways Alliance. We went a day early to check out Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro.

We have a friend who lives in the North Alabama area. I ask him about a place he had spoken of for fried chicken. He gave me the low down on a place on Lake Guntersville. Fried chicken, fried fish, fresh off the lake and sides of southern lunch buffet regulars.

The food was good and I had three plates, one built around fried chicken, one built around the fish, which were as good as the fried chicken. My third plate was built around whatever I had not yet tried. I tried seventeen different foods including breads and salads.

But thats not the point of this story. No, the reason this meal stands out most of all is because of an embarrassing moment I had in the restaurant and didn’t even know it until I was driving away in my car.

See, I had ask my friend where he went for the fried chicken and he told me it was called Bruces’. He went on to tell me he grew up hanging out with Bruce as a teenager when his folks had a place on the lake. Bruce and his family lived near the lake.

So after my three plates, I went over to this guy who had been tending the buffet since we had arrived and ask if Bruce was there. He said “No, but I’m as good as Bruce” so I told him my friends name and how he had directed us there and how much I enjoyed my three plates. He chuckled and said “Oh yea, I know Ken” and in fact he was supposed to see him that day.

So when I got in the car I dialed up Ken, my friend, to tell him I loved the chicken and fish. I told him I ask for Bruce but the guy I spoke with told me he wasn’t there. Ken stopped me there and told me,”of course Bruce wasn’t there, he’s dead”. Died years ago in a car wreck,the guy I spoke with was his brother. He had opened the place and named it in Bruces’ memory.

I swear Ken had not told me this. And, knowing Ken he had not.