Watching TV and a reminder of the past

Here in South Africa, they do have Satellite TV.  (DSTV is the main provider.  Not great, but I get to watch my Tottenham play, and they sometimes have good movies on as well.)

One of the things they do have is the UK version of Food Network.  So I on occasion get to watch "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives."  I used to watch it in the States, and we've even been to a few places that have been on the show.  Good stuff, even if Guy is a bit over the top.  But that's his persona and he's making bank, so why should I care?  (Except for his incredibly thin skin over his restaurant in Times Square, which if you don't know, look up the NY Times review and the reaction to it.)

You see, one of the reasons I watch this show is because it makes me think of my paternal grandfather.  John Parker, whom I'm named after, did many things in his life, but what I always remember is he and my grandmother owning restaurants.  Actually before they owned a restaurant, they owned a Stuckeys in Tonkawa, Oklahoma.  Pecan Logs for everyone!  (And if you don't get that joke, look it up.  For my non-US readers, Stuckeys was the rest-area of choice for many Americans on the highways.  Almost always paired with a Dairy Queen, and Pecan Logs were one of their most famous offerings.)  My grandfather would have been perfect for that show.  Grandma was, and still is, quite reserved when it comes to publicity, but not my Grandpa.  He was always out front talking to people, welcoming them to his restaurant, and making sure people were taken care of immediately.

He was also famous for his tall tales, which may mean the story I'm about to tell isn't true.  But it sounds true, so I'm going to use it anyway.  One day my Grandpa brought out the plates for a table, and he said he was so proud of how one of the meals looked that he brought a camera with him to take a picture of it before they ate.  That's the kind of guy he was.  To know Johnny and Alta Parker was to know good food and be entertained.

Guy would have loved my Grandpa's greasy cheese-burger (my mother's favorite) and everyone everywhere loved my Grandma's cinnamon rolls.  (So much so that in one of the towns where they owned a restaurant a service station down the road would buy her rolls and sell them at the station.  I'm talking good!)

Yes, Grandpa would have been a star if he'd been operating restaurants today.  Food Network would have given him his own show.  It would have been 30 minutes long and he only would have cooked two things because he would have told so many stories, but people would have loved him.

Grandma is still with us ("feisty" is how my father still describes her) but Grandpa has been gone for 12 years now.  Not a day goes by that I don't think about him.  So I watch this show and think about what could have been.