Breakfast in Mentone, Alabama

1973 was the last year I visited Mentone, Alabama. During the summer in the 1930s, my mother's family drove north from New Orleans to stay at the lodge for a break from the sticky heat. My parents continued the tradition a few times with us kids. Mentone was a very small town in northeast Alabama, near Fort Payne, perched up in the southern edge of the Smoky Mountains. The Smokies are old, soft, weathered sedimentary mountains, unlike the sharp-edged Rockies out west. The lodge was rural, not gated or fenced, just situated in the middle of heavenly nowhere. The only cars were the few arriving or leaving. You could fish in the creeks, walk to see waterfalls, explore caves. Grownups spent a lot of time on the front porch of the lodge, just breathing in the mountain air, conversing with other guests, and watching the birds, the butterflies, and, at nightfall, the lightning bugs. Sometimes the grownups would go into the yard to play shuffleboard or horseshoes with their kids.

There was a big bell in front of the lodge and the cabin house. Not certain, but breakfast may have been at 9 on weekdays, and 10 on weekends. Ten minutes before breakfast, someone would come out and ring the bell. When breakfast was arriving at the tables, the bell was rung once again.

By the second bell, just about everybody was already gathered inside. No one wanted to miss the food. The mountain air made you hungry, and just as you thought you might faint, there came the couple who owned the lodge and their helpers, carrying bowls of steaming food to the two long tables with their clean tablecloths, good utensils, and cloth napkins. The old china bowls and platters, patterned with flowers, held steaming grits, scrambled eggs, strips of crisp bacon, and fresh biscuits, still dusted lightly with the flour from the rolling pin. There was a plate with curls of butter, and bowls with strawberry or peach preserves. Glass pitchers of milk, water, and orange juice were at the end of each table, and coffee was served once everybody was seated. No, no one was late for breakfast.

You don't forget a breakfast like that, now like a dream, so vividly real then - the bell, the friendly voices, the smell of the bacon and eggs, the sunlight on the tables, the clean, cool mountain air.