Published: July 24, 2008 10:48 pm         

It was a classic case of nutty behavior

Although my favorite meal is generally whatever I am eating at the time, I lean toward choosing breakfast above all others.

That’s because it involves combinations of savory meat and eggs, potatoes, sweet things made from grain and the day’s first coffee. Much of it is fried.

Al Gore would say it has a high pork fat footprint.

When I go to a new restaurant and find out there is a breakfast buffet, my heart leaps ... sort of. Like a good dog, a good breakfast buffet isn’t going to let you down.

My friends and I walked into Dunlap’s in Gettysburg and the waitress said there was a breakfast buffet. A target of opportunity.

They’re going to feed me all of the scrambled eggs, sausage and/or chipped beef gravy and biscuits, sausage, bacon, home fries with onion, doughnuts and fruit that I can eat, and all of the coffee I can drink, for $6.50? The biscuits were fluffy and hot, and the sausages were real sausages, big and juicy and aromatic with spices and garlic — not those insipid, shriveled-up pseudo-sausages that are gone in two bites.

The eggs were powdered, but they were good powdered eggs, and I covered the biscuits with gravy and put the eggs on top of that. The trick was not to eat so much that all I wanted to do was go take a nap.

Speaking of targets of opportunity, my friend Gary might be the first Yankee to come under live fire at Gettysburg since the battle itself. A squirrel has taken a dislike to him and bombards him with acorns. (If you’ve ever wondered why why nutty behavior is described as “squirrely,”this should tell you.)

“And they’re not little acorns like we have around here,” Gary said. “They’re great big acorns, and they’re really traveling when they hit me in the head. It hurts. Mark can be standing right next to me, and he won’t get hit. It’s me he’s after.

“We were telling this woman about the squirrel, and she acted like we were crazy,” he said. “That’s when the acorns started coming down out of the tree. Every one of them hit me, and not a one hit Mark. The little b****** never missed!”

Mark and Gary wear the uniforms of Union Army lieutenants and go to Little Round Top to meet and talk to tourists and answer their questions. I’ve gone with them twice, during April and July, but didn’t see the squirrel because there were no acorns in the trees. No acorns, no squirrels. If I get back there in November, it might be different.

“I saw this damn squirrel standing there, looking at Gary,” said Mark. “I said, ‘There’s your buddy,’ and when Gary looked, the squirrel turned and went right up the tree. Wasn’t but a minute or so later that the acorns started coming down on him.”

“The woman who was watching this laughed like she was crazy,” Gary said. “She told me, ‘Look at his fur. It’s gray. He’s a Confederate squirrel, and you’re in a Union uniform.’ ”

Some people we meet are truly fascinating, like the folks who wanted Mark and Gary to pose with their Boyd’s Bear sitting on the cannon barrel. Every place they go, they take a picture of this bear.

Another fellow wondered how the battle would have turned out if the Confederates had cell phones. I was tempted to tell him, “They’d still have lost because Virginia was the only place that had cell towers. This was a dead zone up here.”

Two men and their two sons spent so long talking to us and were so interesting that when they left, I got up from the rock where I had gone to rest for a spell and came back to tell them good-bye.

When we got back to our motel that night, the same two guys were sitting on a bench in front of their room across the parking lot with a cooler of beer and a jug of whiskey. Kismet.

Both of the men were named Mark, and one had a son named Mark. The other boy was Christopher. I decided to refer to our Mark as Mark I, and the others would be Mark II, Mark III and Mark IV.

They were from New Jersey, and their families get together when the mood strikes to do the same thing we did that night — sit up until almost 3:30 a.m., being overgrown kids. Mark III had a stash of Guinness in bottles which contain a gas cartridge that injects the contents with effervescence. They sounded like a .22 going off when he opened them.

Mark I’s car was parked a few feet away, and he rolled down all of its windows and put the “Gods and Generals” soundtrack CD in to play.

As I was debating the wisdom of this, a woman in the next room stuck her head out of the door and asked us to keep it down.

The next morning, she said, “It’s a good thing my husband wasn’t here last night,” and I thought, “Oh, boy,” but she smiled and added, “Yeah, he’d have been right out there with you guys.”

Now, we have new friends from a faraway land. Mark II bought our lunch and tried to work it so we wouldn’t find out until after they left. We’ve been in contact with them, and they want to come and see where we live and schedule their vacations during the events we’re likely to attend in Gettysburg.

In some ways, new friends are like new breakfast buffets:

Enjoy them, but be respectful of what they offer and don’t take advantage of them. Be sure to give something back (even if it’s only to tip the waitress who brings your coffee or buy your new buddies lunch the next time). Visit them when you can — but not so often that you wear out your welcome — and appreciate the variety they’ve introduced to your life.

Above all else, just be thankful you found them.