Icy mornings take me straight back to North Carolina, to those years when I’d rise before daylight, grab my car keys, and point my car north on I-85 toward Thomasville. My dad was ninety-nine then, and I made that trip often, the heater still groaning to life as I shivered in the dark. What kept me going was the thought of a steaming cup of coffee and the best buttermilk biscuit this side of the Mason-Dixon Line, waiting for me at the Whistle Stop Café.
Once I hit the highway, all I could think about was that buttery, salty country-ham biscuit wrapped in its crinkly paper. When my mother was alive, she made beautiful biscuits too, but hers were a different breed entirely—soft and delicate, meant for butter or a dab of her strawberry freezer jam she put up every summer. They were tender as her heart, but they’d never hold up to a thick slice of ham or sausage, and they surely weren’t made for eating behind the wheel.
Across the Carolinas, no matter the occasion—funeral, baptism, or wedding—you can bet biscuits will be on the table. Those golden, flaky layers of buttery goodness are part of who we are. A good biscuit says, You belong here.
I was fortunate to live near the Whistle Stop back then. My dad was settled in a retirement home nearby, and every visit began with a stop at that little café to pick up a few biscuits to bring him. It looked like something out of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes—a tiny cracker-box of a building at the corner of West Main and Lexington Avenue, hardly a stone’s throw from the railroad tracks. That’s how it got its name.
Tom Lawson, who owned the place, had a grin as warm as his oven. “I started off working at a little country-boy restaurant back when hot dogs were a nickel and hamburgers were a dime,” he told me once, chuckling at the memory. Tom and his wife, Grandell, made some of the finest biscuits and pies this side of heaven in a kitchen no bigger than a pantry. He and my dad became fast friends.
Sure, Tom loved baking, but he loved people more. “We’re not looking for dollar marks on the cash register,” he told me. “We just want to make sure when a man walks out of here, he’s happy and satisfied.”
Before anyone knew about his pies, Tom relied on the red light out front to do his advertising. When it turned red, he’d run out into the street with a slice of pie, offering it to drivers stuck at the light. “You’d be surprised,” he said, grinning. “I’ve still got folks who come in because of that.”
Every few weeks, Dad and I would go down to the cafe to visit with Tom and catch up on the news of the day. I can still see the soft morning light as it spilled through the café window, glinting off my chipped white mug filled with steaming coffee. Beside it, on a small plate, was a golden buttermilk biscuit split open—steam rising from its flaky layers, a sliver of country ham peeking out. In the background, the faint outline of a railroad crossing sign and an old red light evoke a sleepy Southern town just waking up. These were days I treasured. Life was simple, yet grand.
When the Encyclopedia Closes
When a father from that generation leaves this earth, something vast and irreplaceable goes with him. It’s as if an entire encyclopedia of wisdom, humor, and quiet know-how evaporates — gone with the tides of time.
Men like my dad didn’t just live history; they carried it around inside them. They could fix a leak, sharpen a knife, or tell you which way the wind would blow just by watching how the trees moved. They had an instinct for what mattered and a reverence for what lasted. They didn’t waste words, and they didn’t need to.
My father could listen longer than anyone I’ve ever known. He’d lean back, cross his arms, and give you his full attention — the kind that feels like sunlight on your face. He taught without preaching. He lived by example. And though he never called it “love,” that’s what it was all along — steady, unspoken, and sure as the sunrise.
When he died, it felt as though a great library had burned to the ground. Not the kind filled with books, but the kind filled with memory.
The sound of his voice, the stories only he remembered, the family lore that lived in his mind — all of it gone, just like that. Suddenly, there was no one left who remembered the year of the big snowstorm in Philadelphia, where his train got stuck in the blizzard. Home was miles away, and walking was the only way to get there. And those stories he told of frog gigging down by the creek on the family farm were priceless.
You never realize how much a single person holds until the day they’re no longer here to hold it. Their memory is a map of where you came from, and when that map fades, you’re left standing in the quiet, feeling both lost and profoundly grateful.
What I miss most isn’t the advice or the answers. It’s the calm certainty that came from knowing he was in the world — the sound of his voice on the phone, the slow drawl that could make even bad news seem manageable. Fathers of that generation were made of weathered hands and steadfast hearts. They built their love plank by plank, conversation by conversation, meal by meal.
When they go, the house feels stiller, the mornings a little colder. But somewhere in that silence is their legacy — all they taught without ever meaning to.
I still find him in the simplest things: the smell of fresh coffee, the sound of a train in the distance, a flaky biscuit on a Saturday morning. They are small reminders that some wisdom never really leaves us. It lingers, like the faint hum of a song you can’t forget.
This is a beautiful tribute to your father, and very touching to read. As for biscuits, there is NO better breakfast staple—and country ham is THE best addition to a good southern biscuit. Last comment: the name Grandell is quite unique! Any idea where it came from?