The Best of Waco...

I received my instructions to vote for Jordan Browning for the best Wedding Coordinator in Waco. I did, and you should too. Go HERE , fill out the information, and scroll down the thousand or so selections until you get there, and vote for Jordan Browning-Ever After.

Hopefully the readers of The Wacoan will get this one right, although they rarely do. So to help you navigate what is objectively the best of Waco, I give you my list...

1. Best Chicken Fried Steak: George's.

Several weeks ago I had a free Saturday and decided to drive around the little towns outside of Waco, assuming I would find a killer chicken fried steak. Surprisingly, no such place was found. The next week I met a friend at George's and decided to give their's a try, and it was phenomenal. Pat Green has good taste.

2. Best Little Old Lady: Dorothy Clark.

I have known Mrs. Clark for years now. She spent much of her adulthood as a missionary in Japan, until her husband passed away in his mid fifties. She tells me that she still gets so angry sometimes at him leaving her.

One of my first conversations ever with her was at Barnes and Noble, shortly after we had become friends. She was reading a book in the Christian section that teaches that people of all faiths will be in heaven. As I came up to greet her, she was startled, afraid someone else was seeing her reading the book. Fearing she was in enemy territory, she curled her finger for me to come closer so she could whisper what she had to tell me. She said that she agreed with what was in the book. She said that she had friends who were Buddhist and Hindu, and she didn't care what the preachers on television said, there was no way they weren't getting into heaven.

As we got to know each other more she began saying-- "You know what? The more I think about it, the more I think God may even let people like YOU in heaven, Craig." I replied "People like me? What do you mean people like me?" She answered "You know. Republicans."

3. Best Middle Aged Lady: Pat Farrell

There is no story like a Pat story, and they all require adult ears. I've heard all my life about people not caring what others think about them, but Pat is one of the few I've met for whom that is genuinely true. I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again.

During the early years of me working at Barnes and Noble, Pat and I had a conversation about John Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, a book about the Fundamentalist Mormon sect. Pat noted that it was strange how the women were married to so many husbands and were worried about which one they would be married to in heaven. She said "Hell, If I get to heaven and find out there are husbands there, just send me to the other place!"

4. Best Mrs. Pac-Man: Laundrymat on the corner of Waco Drive and 25th.

For a while I was without a washer and dryer and would use this facility. I got so addicted to the Mrs. Pac-Man, that I would sometimes go in and play even when I didn't have laundry to do. It is one of the originals, not like the one at H-E-B that is slower than it should be.

5. Best Mexican Restaurant: Mi Tequila.

I like to think I have a little to do with the success of this restaurant. Located in a building on Valley Mills that has been a million different things, it is a rather nondescript building. I'm not quite sure how I discovered the place, but somehow I became a regular. Most of the waitstaff know what to bring me. (#33, Beef, Sweet Tea.) Once I was there and about a quarter of the people in there were people I told about the place. It warmed my heart.