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Members of the community gathered at Fred’s Restaurant on the evening of March 18 to enjoy a meal with Dr. Charles Qualls and to learn more about his recently published book “Time Well Spent at Bubba-Doo’s: Stories from a Southern Country Store.”

Qualls, who is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church, now has 11 titles published with Smyth & Helwys Books, a publisher based in Macon, Georgia.

“Time Well Spent at Bubba-Doo’s” is a collection of 21 Southern fiction short stories Qualls wrote across the last three years that draw inspiration from a variety of sources throughout his life, including Fred’s and some of the very people serving those gathered on March 18.

Some of those gathered were well versed in the stories because they either had read the book or had been reading the stories one-by-one over the last three years via the first way most of them had been released to the public — the news wire service Baptist News Global.

Qualls explained the genesis of the Bubba-Doo’s stories in an April email interview. The managing editor of Baptist News Global had previously invited him to be a more regular op-ed writer for the wire service. However, Qualls was wary of some of the social media-based feedback he consistently received on his more conventional content dealing with the cultural and religious issues of the day.

“So, I tossed him this preposterous idea that maybe I could get at some of these same cultural and religious issues through Southern fiction short stories,” Qualls stated. “He told me to send him one or two and he would try them out. After the first couple, it seems we were off and running.”

Nineteen of those short stories, plus two all-new ones, have been gathered in book form for the first time by way of “Time Well Spent at Bubba-Doo’s.” Following is the official description of this 160-page book that was published in January:

“Imagine a big country store set in a small community on a highway far away from big city life. Now throw in a restaurant and bar, complete with waitresses who will bless your heart. The regulars have a life and culture all their own, but when newcomers or visitors stop in, well, that’s when things get downright fascinating. 

“That’s Bubba-Doo’s — a place where life, faith and culture not only get discussed but become real. Make a visit through these short stories that are at least a little fictional. Order a soft drink and a burger and slow yourself down. All of that other will keep, and you’ll find that a visit to Bubba-Doo’s just might be time well spent.”

After those gathered at Fred’s had finished eating on March 18, Qualls was given a microphone and took some time to talk about the book.

He explained that there is actually a real country store with a restaurant inside it down in middle Georgia named Bubba-Doo’s.

“When I started thinking about writing these stories, for some reason, that fun name of Bubba-Doo’s came to mind, so it is a real place, but this is made a lot bigger,” Qualls said. “The story is bigger in my fictional world, the Bubba-Doo’s restaurant and bar are a lot bigger in my fictional world of Bubba-Doo’s, but I took the name and the basic concept.

“We have a place or two like that around here that has two or three tables and a little grill in it, and you can go order lunch, but you’re in a gas station,” he said. “Bradshaws Country Store (in Carrsville) is an example where you can go and order your lunch, and they cook it, and you can sit at a table while you’re in the store.

“So these places do exist,” he added. “The one in Bubba-Doo’s is just a little bigger.”

He said the fictional world of Bubba-Doo’s is made up of, in part, people he met and experiences he had working at his father’s country store, Greenway Grocery & Hardware, in Roswell, Georgia, which was a small city of 2,400 people when Qualls was born in it but had grown to 50,000 by the time he left for college.

“My dad’s country store sat right in the middle of where most of the growth was happening,” Qualls stated in an interview.

He noted that so many of the “regulars” in the Bubba-Doo’s stories are based on people he grew up around at his dad’s store. Characters like Mickey, Ralph, Aaron, Landrum and Fred are all people who were at the store daily — sometimes more than once daily.

 

“But I put a restaurant inside an old country store,” he said at the March 18 gathering. “The longer I wrote these stories, I just pretty transparently lifted Fred’s (Restaurant) and put it into the stories, and so this is the backdrop. (Fred’s Restaurant owner) David (Rabil) makes an appearance in several of the stories, coming out from the kitchen to say something.”

Qualls noted that five of the servers at Fred’s have made it into Bubba-Doo’s stories so far.

“Among those are ‘Stephanie’ (Krystal Bryant in real life) and ‘Marleen’ (Darla Howell) who are the most widely featured,” he said in an April interview. “The two of them will appear in a majority of the stories. But also there is ‘Shelley’ in the book (Ashley Rawls), ‘Angel’ (Cathy Pittman) and more. They’ve been great sports about it all.

“One of the more recent stories that was written after I submitted the manuscript for publication, but that has been published online, was a tribute to Uncle Mitch Rabil’s recent passing at the age of 104,” he added.

Qualls also noted that there are two regulars in the Bubba-Doo’s stories who sit side-by-side and drink big mugs of beer every late afternoon at the Bubba-Doo’s bar. In real life, he saw them at Fred’s often. 

“They always remind me of the old TV show ‘Cheers,’ where they would raise a mug and greet everyone,” Qualls said. “I don’t think it ought to take Fred’s regulars too long to figure out who inspired that.”

Then, echoing some comments he shared at the March 18 Fred’s gathering, Qualls said, “Let me say a word about the character that far-and-away the most people are asking me about. In the stories, his name is ‘Stumpy.’

“At least three times a week since the book came out, people are stopping me (or texting or calling) to ask either ‘Who is Stumpy?’ or ‘Am I Stumpy?’” Qualls said. “He’s the obvious antagonist, and no one aspires to be him in real life. Stumpy is a fictional character I composed, based on at least three real-life people I’ve known either locally or in other places we’ve lived. So no one person is Stumpy, maybe to a few peoples’ relief.”

Elsewhere in the stories, notable people in the Franklin community pop up, including Qualls’ wife, Elizabeth Qualls.

“Actually, the gentleman leaving right now is in a couple stories also,” Qualls said at the March 18 gathering, triggering a wave of laughter as people looked over and saw the individual stopping and looking up in surprise.

The gentleman in question was former The Tidewater News Publisher Tony Clark.

“If you read (‘Easter Monday at Bubba-Doo’s: The car wash explained’),” Qualls said, “my friend Tony makes an appearance, and Tony actually makes another appearance that I’ll tell you about in a few minutes because he’s got to go home and supervise his yard work.”

Clark good-naturedly replied, “I will be calling you later,” which promoted another wave of laughter.

Qualls next shared how one of the short stories in the book was born, stemming from a rare instance in which he was able to meet his wife for lunch at Fred’s.

He said they noticed a City Council member sitting in one of the booths. In just a few minutes, Clark came in and sat down at the same booth.

Qualls noted being stunned to see the two of them gathered together in a booth. Then a few minutes after that, another city official came in and joined them.

Qualls said he exclaimed to his wife, “Wow!” He said he would have never expected to see these three individuals hunkered down in a booth doing business, and he wondered what was going on.

“Y’all this is a true story,” Qualls said. “About that time, my phone goes ‘ding,’ and it’s a text, and one of them in the booth says, ‘I know, I know it looks weird to see the three of us sitting here together.’ And I thought, ‘OK, alright.’ So I told (Elizabeth) about that, and we have a giggle about that.

“And then I hear ‘ding,’ and it’s a second person from the same booth — they’re texting unbeknownst to each other!” Qualls said. “And that person says, ‘This is a weird trio. I get it. I’ll explain later.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, they’re reading my mind.’ When the second text came in, I looked at Elizabeth, and I said, ‘This just became a Bubba-Doo’s story.’

“And so you’ll see a story called ‘Intrigue Fills a Booth at Bubba-Doo’s,’ and there’s a big business deal that has brought an unlikely trio of characters together to work on one project that does some good in the community, and so hopefully you’ll enjoy that story, but it happened right here at Fred’s,” Qualls said.

He answered a variety of questions from those gathered March 18, including how many members of Franklin Baptist Church were represented by characters in the book — one so far, and whether or not the stories are in chronological order — they’re not.

Someone also asked him for details about the story that highlighted a multi-stage car wash that a vehicle moves through. Qualls noted that the car wash was a metaphor for what it is like to be a minister during Holy Week, which ran from March 24-30 this year.

“So you enter the car wash as a minister on Palm Sunday, and you come out of the car wash, the other end of it, after Easter service on Easter Sunday, and every day along the way is just more things that are happening on this conveyor belt, and they’re wonderful and they’re sacred and they’re incredible, but it’s like being in a car wash for a week,” he said. “The idea for that came from my football coach friend Paul Johnson.”

Johnson once told him about how college football coaches leading teams from Power Five conferences would go to ESPN’s headquarters in advance of the season and dedicate the day to doing a series of interviews with one show host after another.

“They call it the coach’s car wash, because you move through the studio in a whole day, and that’s where the metaphor for Holy Week comes from in the Bubba-Doo’s story,” Qualls said. “It is not at all derogatory, and I hope that nobody will read that story and take it the wrong way. It’s just an insider’s look, a little pull back of the curtain, to what Holy Week is like for a minister.”

During the April interview, Qualls took a moment to reflect on the March 18 gathering at Fred’s Restaurant that saw approximately 75 people come out. He noted that at least 15 people said they could not stay but made a point to come by at the very beginning of the two-hour event to get copies of the book signed and to say ‘hello.’ Around 60 people stayed to eat dinner with him and learn more about the book.

“That was such a meaningful evening for me,” Qualls said. “I was amazed that they wanted to do that. And that so many people turned out.”

He explained that the gathering came about because David and Patti Rabil wanted to host an event. 

“I couldn’t believe it,” Qualls said. “Patti and our mutual friend, Becky Scarboro, did such a great job designing the night. Then, some of their friends and my church members helped out with decorating the place. The special edition Fred’s T-shirt was no small matter, either. They even designed a special menu for that night, using foods that turn up in the stories. 

“Every person who came out, I was so pleasantly surprised and honored,” he said. “Then, during the Q&A time their interest was so specific. Many of them had already read the book, and some of them had been following the stories for years as they were first published online and then posted on social media.”

Baptist News Global and social media have helped significantly broaden the audience for Bubba-Doo’s stories.

“I have been to national meetings in other cities like Dallas and Atlanta only to have several strangers introduce themselves as readers of the Bubba-Doo’s stories,” Qualls said. “It’s been a lot of fun meeting people because of the early distribution, one story at a time, to that broad audience.” 

And the distribution and popularity of the stories has expanded the celebrity status of Fred’s and its staff.

“My out of town friends and family come through Franklin, and they want to go to Fred’s so they can meet ‘Stephanie’ and ‘Marleen’ and ‘Dave,’” Qualls said.

“Time Well Spent At Bubba-Doo’s” is the first printed collection of stories from the series, containing 21 short stories, and there are more where those came from as Qualls has continued to write since the book hit the presses.

“We’re coming up on 30 total now, because I’ve been sending stories to the news wire service since the manuscript went to print,” he said at the March 18 event.

Essentially, this means another book chronicling Qualls’ at-least-a-little-fictional world of Bubba-Doo’s is already coming together.

Those interested in purchasing “Time Well Spent at Bubba-Doo’s: Stories from a Southern Country Store” in paperback, Kindle or Audiobook form can do so at Amazon.com. The paperback version is also available to buy at helwys.com

When asked what he hopes readers ultimately take away from reading his Bubba-Doo’s stories, Qualls said, “I really leave it up to my readers to decide if a given story was simply entertaining. Or maybe a story might cause them to think a little bit. Sometimes, they may even feel challenged or given the opportunity to consider something from a different viewpoint than their own. If any of those outcomes arise, then both the reader and I did our jobs. I’m honestly flattered to find that people read and enjoy the stories. That’s the starting place of it all. I enjoy writing them and I hope readers walk away having enjoyed the chance to encounter the stories.”