One last toast (with a sweet tea) to Wilber Shirley

Once a year, when my family traveled from our home in Chapel Hill to the North Carolina coast, we always set out early.

It couldn’t have been easy on my parents — dealing with three cranky boys in the days before iPads and iPhones — but they wanted to make sure they timed the drive just right.

You see, my father is a creature of habit. And he was adamant about beating the lunch rush at one of his favorite restaurants, a humble building right off the highway that was famous for its simple offerings.

We would spend the first few minutes fighting over the hush puppies — daring one another to soak them in hot sauce and laughing when the burn started to set in.

And then, we would all order the same thing.

Chopped barbecue. Potato salad. Sliced tomatoes.

I was reminded that none of the five in my family ever tried something new when I told my father a few hours ago that Wilber Shirley had passed.

“That plate was consistent,” he said. “Salty, creamy, savory and a little sweet.”

When my oldest brother went off to college, our summer vacations took us in different directions. The early morning drives from Chapel Hill to the beach — and our stop at Wilber’s Barbecue — didn’t happen anymore. 

The tradition ended.

But then, as fate would have it, I took a job in Goldsboro a few months after graduating from N.C. State.

My co-workers took me, on my very first day, to Wilber’s.

All sorts of things were ordered that day, but I stuck to what I knew.

Chopped barbecue. Potato salad. Sliced tomatoes.

It felt like coming home.

In the years that followed, I would come to learn that Wilber’s was far more than a place to share a meal with family and friends.

If there was something to talk about in the news, there was always a table at Wilber’s with a waiting chair.

For those of the Democratic persuasion, Wilber Shirley’s restaurant was the center of the political universe — so much so that when a visiting Democratic superstar — or even a Republican one — was in town, a stop along U.S. 70 was a must.

Wilber was, in the eyes of many, a kingmaker of sorts in Wayne County.

He was passionate in his support of his party and its mission, which he supported for decades.

And he was direct — the sort of a man who wasn’t shy about answering a challenge or questioning a potential candidate about his or her intentions. To earn his vote or his endorsement, you had to be a person who lived by your word. Fancy pedigrees weren’t enough.

He held officeholders and potential officeholders accountable.

But even though he was sure of his convictions, Wilber was welcoming, too.

Republicans and Democrats, even the unaffiliated, were always welcome to join in the conversation over a glass of sweet tea and a pile of chopped pork.

But I would come to find that there was so much more to Wilber Shirley than just politics — than a man who served his food to two presidents, senators and just about every military rising star who made his or her way through Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

He was about his community, no matter what its political persuasion.

There were very few times when a good deed or fundraising effort was undertaken in the city or county that Wilber’s Barbecue’s logo was not on the sign.

There were funds, food and manpower donated to nearly every cause that mattered to the people of Wayne County.

For Wilber, it was just what you do when you value your community.

And that is what the man was all about.

There are people who tell another story about him, too — a kind man, a country boy with a big city perspective, a person who loved everything about where he lived and raised his family.

And that is why, today, the news of his passing will make many people sit down and tell their Wilber Shirley stories.

This was a man who left an impression on those who knew him — and a legacy of service and kindness in the community that knew and loved him.

I will remember how his food brought my family together.

Sure, looking back they were seemingly simple meals. 

Chopped barbecue, potato salad and tomato slices.

But Wilber’s was never really all about the food.

And that is why its patriarch will forever remain an irreplaceable figure in the history of our little slice of the Old North State … and well beyond its borders.