It’s odd that Ruth demands we call her by the formal title of ‘Grandmother.’ It seems like a grab at elevating her position. After all, the little kids in town all call her GoGo. What gives?
When I’m old enough to drive myself for visits, and have enough money to treat her, I’ll always ask where she wants to go for lunch, even though I know the dreaded answer. Grandmother loves a buffet and there are several terrible ones in town to choose from. She’ll pretend she doesn’t care, but when pressed, the name of the place always pops out, and it’s the worst one of all: The Graffenburg Inn.
Ack!

Grandmother loves a buffet.
I HATE the Graffenburg Inn. It’s among the worst restaurants in the state. The front of it is pretty enough in a tired Victorian way, but inside it is grim, with walls painted in dark shades, I think to hide the cobwebs and dust in the corners. It’s close to the Totem Pole Playhouse, a summer theater then owned by Jean Stapleton, most lately famous for her role as Edith Bunker in All in the Family. The restaurant sits right on the edge of the highway in the middle of the paved parking lot and no expense has been made to prettify the outside area.
As you enter the restaurant, you’re greeted first by the smell of old buffet food left out to dry. The second greeting comes from the manager. His arrival from Philadelphia created a small sensation a few years before, and old ladies have been batting their lashes at him ever since. He is short and badly dressed, possibly colorblind. His shirts are all too big around his neck. He wears a hairpiece reminiscent of some styles worn by the late Phil Specter. He is easily in his 60s and to me, clearly gay. The old girls just don’t see it, though, just like they couldn’t believe Liberace was gay. Or that the Johnson brothers living together in Chambersburg for 30 years aren’t really brothers.
Grandmother fawns over him as he takes us to our table, handing us menus as we sit. Why bother? The food in the buffet is universally grey in appearance and in taste. If each dish didn’t have a small, handwritten sign, you’d have no idea what it is.
Just another great meal in Chambersburg.
On one visit, I decide I’ve had enough. If I’m paying, I’m picking. Once I get Grandmother in the car, I ask her where she wants to go. As usual she demurs, so I name the German restaurant a little further past the Graffenburg on the Lincoln Highway. I glance at her: she looks like she’s just been kidnapped. On the way out, though, she provides the usual running commentary of buildings we pass and people of note, mostly those of the past.
The German restaurant has a nice ambiance, designed as a German hunting lodge.
Once we’re seated, the complaints begin.
“It’s too dark in here. I can’t see,” Grandmother blinks and affects a squint. We’re sitting right in the front window on a sunny day.
The manager turns up the lights.
“I’m cold,” she says pitiably, drawing her pale blue cloth coat around her.
The manager turns up the heat.
“My drink is too weak.”
The manager happily loads up the booze in her whiskey sour.
“There’s nothing on the menu I want,” she mews, looking at me accusingly.
The manager and I exchange glances and roll our eyes. The menu is extensive. He actually feels sorry for me. I’m thinking what they need at this table is an ejector button. I imagine hitting it and watching Grandmother fly out of her seat and shoot through the roof, her shoes falling off as she hits the troposphere.

The lowest part of Earth's atmosphere, the troposphere, has been
rising by 164 feet per decade since 1980.
I take a big breath and point out things on the menu I think she will like. She finally picks one with ill grace. But she eats every drop of it, turning her nose up just a bit at each bite. Then she demolishes a very large dessert.
I get her back in the car, and she’s quiet until we pass the Graffenburg Inn.
“Now that,” she says, looking at it longingly, “is a nice place!”
The rest of the way she gives the same commentary as earlier, in reverse.
Sadly, Chambersburg falls prey to an arsonist. And what do you know, the first casualty is the Graffenburg Inn, burned to the ground.
I have a solid alibi.
But the second victim is the German restaurant. Then several more restaurants are torched.
Someone around here is clearly unhappy with the Chambersburg food scene.
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