Waynesboro after dark

With his shaggy salt-and-pepper beard the former electronics expert seems more of a cross between Grizzly Adams and Steven Spielberg as he strolls Kroger's aisles just after midnight Wednesday.

A fast-approaching tax deadline forced this temporary respite from the Appalachian Trail. It now has him anxiously awaiting a ride to his son's house in North Carolina.

Though his ride isn't for several more hours, he is afraid to sleep through it.

"Uncle Sam, you know," he chuckles. "I hate to do it."

Ron and his oversized hiking boots probably are not what most people would consider to be a prime example of a city's nightlife. But, then again, Waynesboro still is in its infancy when it comes to sharing the after-dark qualities of the big city.

So, the after-hours nightclubs have yet to arrive. But, there's still Wal-Mart and a parking lot that somehow teams with more traffic after midnight than do the city streets.

Then there's the month-old Waffle House, open 24-7 be it a regular weekday or Christmas, the waitresses insist. The glass house jumps out of the country darkness with a glow that invites passersby to join the tiny band inside.

One booth has the bleary-eyed man in the baseball cap sitting over a cup of Joe.

His eyes blink rapidly as his head does the duck-and-weave of someone about to hit the dream world. Give it a few seconds and eventually his lids slam shut, his chest slouches against the table and the gruff rumble of a snore escapes him.

And then, pop! His head snaps up with eyelids open. He sheepishly scans the diner with a scowl swearing that he's been awake the whole time.

But, we know, buddy. We know.

A more boisterous pair of 30ish looking women laughs away the morning at another booth. The conversation furiously jumps from one topic to the next. Their underlying subject remains elusive and impossible to grasp - at least to an eavesdropper. It's one of those discussions best joined at the beginning.

Anyway, all that you really need to know is that each sentence is punctuated by a cackle and then the shrill of both women laughing in unison.

Talk - laugh. Talk - laugh. Talk - laugh.

It stops when a cell phone rings. One woman pulls it from an oversized pocket book and speaks.

Her daughter's voice crackles through loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Hold up! You're on speaker phone," the woman says. Her fingers fumble along the phone for some forgotten magic combination of buttons.

And the daughter continues to blurt out questions and statements in a tempo apparently learned from the mother.

"You're still on speaker phone! Hold on!"

The daughter keeps up her pace, until at last there is a beep. The mother hangs up.

Another round of shrill laughs follow.

And of course, there's the couple on a date.

But, you've got to remember that this is Waynesboro we're talking about. It's just 15-square miles, barely enough space to fill up a metropolitan neighborhood.

This date involves a preacher from Massanutten and a woman who owns a jewelry business in Alaska, where she lives half the year.

Eleanor White spends winters here so she can visit her 93-year-old mother at a Stuarts Draft retirement home.

It just so happens that the Rev. Jeff Schroeder is the retirement home's chaplain.

He drapes his arm over her shoulder in a way that allows her to snuggle up to him. Their conversation is quiet but steady. They're alone in their own romantic world.

Not exactly the high-flying socialites one expects to find roaming the streets when the city is asleep. But, they're also not the type to allow a good adventure to slip by, either.

They had just finished an under-the-stars tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

"The air is like velvet tonight. We just wanted to be out and enjoy it," she says.

Yet, the city's original nightspot is the downtown Kroger. For years it's been the gathering place of those who refuse to call it lights out with the rest of the world.

Admittedly, you're likely to find only one or two souls crawling the aisles at a time. Like Rambo Ron, who at 57 sold his Indiana home to fulfill a dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail.

The man who once built tomahawk missiles for the U.S. military seems pretty quiet at first. Especially since he is killing time by reading the labels on ice cream container. After a word or two, though, Ron is nothing but grins as he spiels out one adventure after another.

There's the time the switchbacks near Front Royal were so iced over that he slipped and slid down the mountain on his back. He swooshed from one tree to the next hoping to avoid boulders.

Then there's the story about the hiker who went skinny dipping in a river. He swears he had no idea a girl scout troop had set up camp in the nearby clearing.

No, it's probably not the same as in the big city. But, it's still pretty interesting.

Contact Michael L. Owens at 932-3563.