George Wilkins - Reflections About a "Whopper" Renaissance Man

I first met George Wilkins several years ago in a small cafe outside Las Cruces. It was a truck stop cafe catering to big rig traffic along Route 10 and offered the usual truck stop amenities. George was complaining about and reflecting upon the usual things - high fuel costs, too many LTL trips and the damned cops who seemed to be targeting him. Nothing particularly new, but George Wilkins was a delightful complainer and an insightful thinker. He was a fairly normal looking guy, about 5'10', balding slightly, and had a crook nose that added interest to a rather common looking face. He said his kids had grown and left and his wife was about fed up with too many coast-to-coast runs. He claimed his favorite food was a Burger King "whopper" although he was rather svelte for someone who claimed he could down a whopper for breakfast, lunch and dinner and believed they contained all the essential vitamins and minerals a body could need.

What made George Wilkins interesting was his philosophy about life. He said he learned how to approach life from his father. He recounted that his father now suffered from a bit of dementia and said he thought his dad's life was better for it. Seems, his father was unaware of any slippage in his recall faculties and George thought it was interesting that crazy people don't know they're crazy, so they are unencumbered by any feelings of inadequacy. What his dad said made perfect sense to his dad and that's all that was necessary. Anyone that could not understand the point of any of his stories was the one with reasoning problems.

He told an amusing story about a recent trip his dad took to the doctor for a routine check-up. George's father was greeted by a rather buxom receptionist wearing a low-cut blouse which made a declarative statement about what lay just below a few layers of polyester. Dad must have been impressed, even at age 87, because when the receptionist asked, "How are you feeling?", Dad had a bit of a twinkle in his eye when he replied, "I haven't felt anything since my wife passed several years ago." That made perfect sense to Dad, but the receptionist seemed a bit confused as to exactly what dad was referring too. One had wonder which of the two might be suffering from dementia.

Anyway, George Wilkins was a wonderful observer of human nature and had a number of stories about the events that made life interesting. I think truck drivers are like that. While driving a "big rig" requires alertness, it also affords the opportunity to reflect on life. George Wilkins' love affair with the Burger King "whopper" must have resulted in his descriptions of life. He reckoned that a hamburger and life had many similarities.

George Wilkins explained that the bun that surrounds a whopper is like the outer epidermal layer of people. Just inside the thin brown outer shell of the bun is a warm softness that reflects one's feelings and emotions. Still deeper is the "meat" that makes us what we are. However, one must first penetrate the sauces, vegetables and condiments that frequently cover the individual soul as well as the meaty delight of a whopper. George Wilkins went on to draw a rich and colorful association between man and whopper which I can only describe as partly bizarre and possibly the thinking of a renaissance man. Certainly, he could qualify as a "whopper" renaissance man. One has to think there is only a thin layer between the extremely perceptive and and those that may be deemed slightly demented. I wondered if his father had been a "whopper" gourmand.

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I had to be on my way and George was perusing a truck route planner he had discovered on a web site called TruckerToTrucker.com. We parted amicably and I told George I would see him on the next trip. Lulu, George's assistant driver was just completing the last bite of her whopper as I bid farewell.

This is a true story in a literary sense. George does exist and it is said that George Wilkins ate the last whopper just prior to Burger King starting their advertising campaign about the demise of the whopper. You can see George Wilkins who is featured on a commercial by clicking on the link in the resource section.