“A Priest Walks into a Waffle House” by Lauretta Hannon

A Priest Walks into a Waffle House by Lauretta Hannon is a collection of ninety nonlinear short stories.

So, let me just tell you right here and now, Lauretta is a hoot. Not only that but she makes a very good case for the proper use of punctuation in her first chapter when she writes, “Before you decide I’m a nut job, let me explain.” I initially read that as “Before you decide, I’m a nut job, let me explain.” I might say that it could go either way with all the charm that humor can muster.

I also wish to say that when I offered to review her book, she gave me the choice of a digital copy or print. Since I am, unfortunately, a paper person and maybe highly responsible for deforestation, I chose print. Her book was not yet in print form so she had it printed for me—somewhere around three hundred 8 1/2 x 11 single-sided pages, in a two-inch spiral binder that she then sent to me. It is the size of one of my full grown cats and must have cost her a small fortune to print and send. She has kept gently in touch to make sure I am on point, which is a nice counterpoint to a small few of those authors who don’t seem to know, or care about, those of us who spend small lifetimes reading and reviewing their books. Thank you, Lauretta.

In the introduction, Lauretta assures us that this book will make us feel better.  “This book is not a wrist-slitter. It is a life giver.” It will show us “That the world is actually brimful of overcoming, beauty, loving kindness, and redemption.” Who can resist that?

The stories begin, surprisingly enough, with a priest walking into a waffle house where she is having breakfast: “It sounds like a joke, but a priest really did walk into my Waffle House that morning.” This story, set in 2015, illustrates her attitude then toward religion. “At that point, you could sum up my belief system as ‘ABC’—Anything but Christianity. I grew up in a family that mercilessly mocked Christians.” Seeing that priest challenged her to look back at her spiritual journey.

Previously in this journey she had a different attitude about Jesus when, as a four-year-old, Lauretta tried to tell her mother, “… JESUS SAID never, ever, put lemon on fried chicken.”

And then there is a story from 1988 about when she asks her grandmother why her seven children look nothing alike:

“Retta, times was hard back in them Hoover days. Harder than you can imagine. Not like it is now. When a man helped me, did something for me, well, I felt like I needed to thank him for it. I didn’t have anything else to give ’em. If it hadn’t been for them, I caint say we would have made it. I guess you could say that from time to time…well, let’s just say there were different britches hanging on the bedpost. You get me?”

I could go on and on with excerpts from her stories, but you’re just going to have to read them yourselves because they cover a range that I cannot here, but I’m going to share one last one that I love about laughter. I know if I ever meet Lauretta she is going to like me because I have an invisible sign over my front door that says, “If you can’t laugh at yourself go home.” She would appreciate that.

“There was, however, solid consensus in one arena: their virulent disapproval of my uninhibited laughter.

“For her part, Me-Maw introduced me to her friends this way: ‘This is my granddaughter, the one I told you about that laughs all the time,’ her mouth puckering like a cat’s butt as she said it.”

Lauretta Hannon

As Lauretta says, these are “stories from a gritty, grace-filled life.” Her journey continues from her belief system to her non-belief system and comes full circle to who she started out to be and finally became, with the most circuitous route imaginable that gave her tangible evidence that she had run the gamut and found her true self. It is a story full of humor, grace, hard times, and unwavering self-awareness.

You cannot help but feel an entire range of emotions as you read through these stories and laugh, cry, gasp, and have your heart constrict with recognition.

And hey, Lauretta, thank you for the 4.2 pound copy of your book. I know you offered to send me one of “normal” size when it came out, but this is too big a story to reduce to normal size!