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sandman Keeps
JCX. 6/r-Vr .
restaurant running
BY EI) LEPOMA
It’s 9:30 Tuesday morning, and “the Sandman” arrives at Carole’s Old Towne restaurant toting two hags of groceries. His personal coffee cup sits on the counter, a reminder that he’s been there earlier.
It’s a scene played out most days each week by this transplant from Wisconsin, who is a fixture; at the popular downtown eatery.
“The Sandman” is Craig Waller, reconteur, fisherman, admitted gambler and onetime ’’pretty good golfer."
Waller ended up in Bay St. Louis about seven years ago after retiring from more than 20 years in the insurance business in New Orleans and on the East Coast.
“We had friends here, and we’d come to visit and spend a couple of weeks,” Waller recalls. “My wife, Zita, wanted to move here, but I kind of resisted.
’’She found a place on De-montluzin and bought it. I hadn’t even seen it. But, now I’m settled in and love it. She still lives most of the time in New Orleans.”
Waller explains that Zita,
“like Rita, but spelled with a Z,” has a full-time accounting business in New Orleans, which she's not quite ready to give up.
“But. she comes here maybe three days a week, and she’s gained quite a reputation as an artist.” Me points to framed water colorings bearing her signature' on the restaurant’s walls.
When he first came to town, Waller said, “I'd hang out at Ruth’s Cakery and became good friends and a fishing buddy of Jim Thompson,” (Ruth’s husband).
It was from one of his first fishing expeditions that Waller got the nickname, “The Sandman.”
“I mentioned to Jim that I had never fished from the beach, and he suggested meeting him and and some others at Henderson Point. ‘You'll see the car.’” he said.
“It was a pitch black morning when I pulled up. and I thought I saw the lights of his car, so I gunned it, and took off in the direction of the lights,” Waller added. “It wasn’t long
SANDMAN-PAGE 12A
Morning routine
Craig “The Sandman” Waller chats with co-owner Mary Woodson at Carole’s Old Towne restauran in Bay St. Louis. Waller is the restaurant’s unofficial errand boy and handyman and a daily fixtur at the popular downtown eatery. (Echo staff photo by Ed Lepoma)
ERTISING OR TO