“OR … AN APOLOGY TO CHIP AND JOHANNA”
Driving past MAGNOLIA TABLE, formerly the ELITE CAFE, the home of Chip’s Crabmeat Waffles and other delights new to the LaSalle and South Waco area, Harry noticed a crowd waiting in the rain. Not just a little rain either. Families were lined up in front of Health Camp and snaking past the parking lot of the barbecue joint almost to the Animal Shelter.
This is fascinating because the last time Harry waited in the rain for three hours it was for Rolling Stones Tickets in the 70’s.
Naturally, a lot of Wacoans think those waiting for a chance to eat a $15 breakfast are totally out of their minds. Most of us remember the ELITE as somewhere we made it to when too drunk to drive home after an evening at the MELODY RANCH. The $6 breakfast sobered us up and we managed to grow to adulthood without a DWI.
Now, it seems people from places like Nebraska are coming here and strangely are madly in love with anything SILO.
Unfortunately, Harry has to apologize now for thinking that these culinary curious folks from out of town are totally bonkers. They seem to be, perhaps, smarter than the rest of us, and damn sure have courage.
Case in point, one Austin lady named Cindy Sadler. Cindy it seems frequents Waco’s I35 businesses, obviously, that is the ELITE and the SILOS, while waiting in a three hour crab waffle line she reads a newspaper. She sees what the hell is going on in Bethlehem on the Brazos and reads about a Baylor rapist getting a sweet deal because he’s young and could get “past” sexually assaulting someone’s daughter and leaving her lying in her own vomit helpless and passed out.
There’s still hope, right?
Cindy Sadler doesn’t see it that way and wrote a pretty scathing and downright funny letter to the editor of the Waco Trib. Here it is:
I pass through Waco regularly and often stop to patronize businesses in town, so I’d like to ask prosecutor Hilary LaBorde and the good Christian people of Waco precisely how many rapes a young man can get away with before a jury in Waco might be ready to convict him. Does he get a punch card? I’d like to make an informed decision about continuing to stop in Waco, plus I would not want to ruin a young man’s life by being raped by him. Boys will be boys, after all, and what’s a little youthful rape and a little ruining of some woman’s life when the rapist could grow up to be really important like a Supreme Court justice or something? Please advise.
Cindy Sadler, Austin
