Homage to an old employer...

When I was a young lad, I took a job at a local restaurant in Kingsport called Pratt's Barn. They were proclaimed, by the local radio adverts, as being "THE place for Breakfast and Barbeque!" The owners had recently relinquished control over the establishment to their son, who seemed less interested in the day to day running of the place and more interested in pursuing a roustabout lifestyle with a bevy of buxom blonde and brunette bimbos, many of whom became waitresses at Pratt's. This was a wonderful selling point for working there, especially for a young lad such as myself experiencing the full assault of puberty.

However, that was about all the place had going for it. The food was alright, when the chef was sober, but the health code violations would probably have gotten us on Don Dare's program. The waitresses, while easy on the eyes and generally nice to me, tended to be bitchy and manipulative, especially when it came to their speculations as to which one of them was currently sleeping with the boss. And the managers were a group of petty micromanagers with a penchant for overcomplicating the simplest of tasks.

A giant Indian statue, made of concrete and fiberglass, stood in front of the building. One time, when I was cleaning it for spider webs, I knocked the loin cloth off. That should be on my headstone. That, or "Nobody Beats Our Meat." But that's another story for another time...