G'day, Grits, and Graceland

In 2006, my daughter married an Australian. Dan's parents, Bob and Debbie, and his brother Steve, came for the wedding. They had never been to the United States before, so we wanted to show them around. We took them to the Grand Ole Opry, and to the Jack Daniels Distillery, you know, all the best places! Debbie is a big Elvis fan, so she wanted to see Graceland. It was the week of my spring break, but Mike was working. Courtney and Dan had to go to Alabama to get their marriage license, so I decided to take Debbie, Bob, and Steve to Graceland.

As we left Murfreesboro early in the morning to drive to Memphis, Bob said he wanted to eat at an American diner. An American diner??? This was 2006, not 1956! I thought and thought about where we could eat breakfast. Suddenly I saw a sign for a Waffle House. Perfect! This was as close as I could come to the traditional American diner.

Now, you need to know that Bob not only speaks with a heavy Australian accent, he doesn't open his mouth when he talks! I learned a year later when we visited their home in Sydney that even his friends have trouble understanding him. So imagine the frustration on the face of the teenaged Tennessee waitress at the Waffle House! She couldn't understand anything he said, and he was having the same problem with her.

First, I had to translate everything she said to us, then everything they said to her. Bob ordered white coffee, and I was just guessing when I said, "I think he wants coffee with cream." Then, I had to explain everything on the menu - scattered, smothered - and then we came to the grits! "What's grits?" Ummm, how do you explain grits? I don't even know what hominy is, I just know grits are good! Finally I convinced them to try some grits. I explained that Mike puts butter and sugar on his grits, while I put butter and salt, and maybe a little black coffee. They went the sugar route, and while they were all game, no one was converted. After they tasted the grits, I told them that they had just done something American that probably 75% of Americans haven't done. Bob's response? "Tastes like porridge!"

On we went to Memphis. We had no trouble getting to Graceland, and we enjoyed the tour of the house and grounds. I'm not a huge Elvis fan, but even I was impressed with the place. Debbie admired everything as we went through, Bob and Steve didn't have a lot to say. But at the very end of the tour, just as we were about to walk across the street back to the parking lot, Bob started shouting, "Look Deb!" I turned around to see what he was looking at, only to hear, "Deb, look it's a squirrel! Take a picture!" A squirrel?? They don't have squirrels in Australia, and the only place they had seen them was in American movies. I think I could have found a squirrel in Murfreesboro...