I love H & H and their big mason jars full of lemonade.

I'm thankful for Donnah and the pleasure she adds to my Wednesdays. Wail on, everybody!

I'd enjoy going there someday.

You will not be disappointed- but don't wait too long. I used to claim that their food was the only sure hangover cure.

The whole place is probably the size of your living room, with maybe five or six small tables like you see there. It's on the bottom floor of a small, old brick building. The plants and shelves seen here are long gone, and the walls have lots of vintage black and white pictures of the Brothers that you need to gain access to. I remember some from the tour bus and at least one where they're playing softball with Mama Louise. Over the juke box, which has Reverend Ike and the Blind Boys of Alabama (we always played both) there used to be a kind of inexplicable painting of a stoned-looking clown riding a catfish through outer space. I know it's gone now because one of my fraternity brothers showed it to me in his house a few years back- he had rescued it from the trash, and offered it to me before throwing it away himself. Wish I taken it now, though I couldn't say why. There is also a large painting over the juke box- still there the last time I visited (1999) of a ghostly Duane rising from his grave, playing guitar. I need to go get a snap of that one for you to feature here some Wednesday.

Suddenly seems like I've posted most of this information previously, so forgive me for wailin' on!

I had a chance to meet the Allmans in 1990 in Spokane Wa.
I had called Kirk West requesting permission to videotape the show and he was most accomodating.
After he introduced me to all of the band he also said I was invited to have Dinner with them backstage before the show. I'll never forget how I felt sitting at the table backstage having a literal Thanksgiving Feast with the band that I loved. They were so cool it was beyond words.
To this day I remember how that made me feel (some 19 years ago) and hope that all that good energy just keeps on flowing as the Skydog would have wanted it to... B.U.

Happy Thanksgiving, Donnah.. Cool pic !

Thanks !

Here I am! Hope everybody had a nice Thanksgiving, or at least a bearable one.
COol pic! So that's H and H? Very retro.

Welcome back, Starla! Hope you and yours had a good one.

H & H is an ultra-quaint little joint, a genuine slice of the past. There used to be two soul food kitchens very near each other, and I guarantee you the Brothers sampled both. (I imagine the Butler House was around in 1969-72). The other was the now-forgotten Butler House, and it was an ongoing discussion about who did what better. Then, sadly, the Butler House burned down in about 1984 and H & H carried on alone. Of course the ladies of H & H made that place more special, and their special relationship with the band will always keep them connected to the ABB just like Rose Hill Cemetery always will be.

Sadly, I have almost no memory what the inside of the Butler House looked like, though I ate there many times. Some forgotten Macon history...

When I lived in Los Angeles, there was a soul food kitchen called Angelena's right near the intersection of Ventura Blvd. and Sepulveda (where Warner's kept its animators). I was there during the Reginald Denny (truck-driver) beating that kicked off the '92 riots, and I was in there right after the Simpson verdict in '95- two strange moments in time for the city, racially. They had big painted portraits of Otis Redding and Aretha and Ray Charles and James Brown to create the atmosphere- but it was H & H Lite, H & H West. The real thing is only found here in the South. And the H & H is the real thing.

Keep 'em fryin', Mama Louise and Mama Hill.

Gosh, Joe, you've been everywhere and seen everything, haven't you? I have a great idea for a show on the Travel Channel: Surfer Joe Srufs America!
When I win the lottery, I want to have a kitchen doen up like a fifites-style diner: lots of chrome, jukebox (hey, it's my lottery win, who says I can't have a jukebox in my kitchen?!) neon, red leatherette... Oh, and a soda-fountian complete with marble slab.

Whew, I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving, I did. Donnah, thank you for the great pic. Joe, isn't Momma Hill deceased? I think she passed on last year. If not, I apologize. If I am right, you know what kind of Thanksgiving Skydog and Berry had, complete with that sweet H&H iced tea!

Starla if you win the lottery you can have any kind of kitchen you want. I will be glad to stop by and listen to some tunes while you cook!

Wail on, Skydog!

I'll even make a pitcher of sweet tea just for you if you happen to stop by. Mine probably won't be as good as tea made by somebody called Mama, but Dustin drinks it every night without complaint so it can't be too bad.

Sad news, Cindy- I had not heard that. There goes a bit of my youth and a precious bit of Macon, Georgia. I have not been in H & H since 1999, when I took a girlfriend from L.A. there. (Those folks just do not get fried food and don't understand how anyone in the South lives to see 30).

I wish I could get one really high quality print of the Brothers to frame in my home, and this would easily be my pick. Next up would be a nice collage of their mug shots in Alabama, if someone could locate Jaimoe's.

Starla, one thing L.A. does know for real is the forties/fifties diner. They have those places like crazy, so many have survived, and I lived in 'em. They're amazing. Many are 24 hours, and in my favorite few I was on a first name basis with everyone there, and once they saw me, my order was usually at my booth, on the table, before I finished parking. And if the Braves were on, they'd switch the set to that for me. So there's a bit of culture they have that we don't.

The decor was never the checkered floor variety- think ancient framed pictures of waterfalls with (don't ask me to explain this) shrink-wrap around the whole framed object, lamps at the booths, long counters full of the regulars, low ceilings pleasantly darkened from generations of cigarette smoke. Many had leftover tiki-era architecture, but most of that decor would be gone by now. If you always went at the same time (say Saturday morning at ten) you always saw the same people sitting in the same places, and I got to know many of them, too.

It was really common to just spot people you knew and join them, forming a larger and larger party. Or sometimes strangers would get mixed up in your conversation and you'd end up sitting with them...

Back here, we have the Waffle House, and everybody just thinks that's the greatest. (Sigh).

I kind of like Waffle House but we don't have one right nearby. We do have an IHOP but obviously it doesn't compare. There's a pizza-and-sub type place (it does serve other stuff) that is kind of like the old-time diner you describe, though the decor is more modern. They do have a soda fountain that has a fifites vibe to it, with sundaes with names like the Chubby Chcker (three scoops) the Little Eva (two) and the Elvis (five plus a ton of toppings.) And yes, in the mornings you will see the same people day after day, and they all know one another and talk for hours.
Your girlfriend just didn't know how special it was being taken to the H & H! Some people just don't appreciate the finer things in life. I'd have been absolutely awed and thrilled if my boyfriend took me there.

Starla I bet you're a lot of fun when you get a couple drinks in ya.

Well I got up early to be number one.. and they still ain't done eatin', and doing whatever Jaimoe
is doing.

I'm plenty of fun sober, Owen. After a couple drinks I'm not so much fun, unless you like quiet and sleepy rag-doll-like people. And no fun at all next morning, unless you consider nauseous, crabby people to be fun. IF so, then I'd be right up your alley.

csason, you know Moma Louise said they was the skinniest boys she had ever seen. Once they started eating, they had to eat for several days! Maybe they will "finish" up soon so Donnah can give us our Wednesday fix!;)

The next one could be one where they're all sprawled out comatose around the football game, burping and wondering who was going to get first crack at the leftovers.