Angels in America

Within our midst, ever cheerful, is the American saint. Not the soft-voiced shuffling monks and nuns residing in isolated valleys and snowy caverns and hushed high rock. She whirls quickly past you, carafes of coffee sailing and sloshing over your head. Diminutive in size, but a commanding presence, she is ever attentive. You know her hairdo, timeless. Mention of her can be found in fragments from the Biblical era to the Bible-belt. Depending on the climates of translation, she is variously known as "Waitress of the American Diner" but you know her by Flo, or in our case here in Atlanta, Rhia. We've been in Georgia a few days for an International schools job fair, and found The White House diner, the real deal, unflashy, been here 60 years and hasn't changed a day. Why is Rhia and her bevy anointed with sainthood? For the simple but essential act: she's there with coffee refills before you have to flag a skinny airhead down to ask. Rhia was born at 55 years old and has remained and will remain to please and accommodate and call you "sweetie" long after you and I settle in soil and mingle with leaves and gnarled plums for a worm's banquet. Photos of presidents lined the walls of this venerable diner. After we sat down and immediately had coffee served, I lunged from the booth to find us a newspaper. A southern trucker with the Saturday edition piled on his table spied me searching. "Looking for a newspaper?" Scanning inside and out, I said yes. "You can have this one." You sure? "Yeah I'm done with it. Let me just check my horoscope..."