No Doughnut Left Behind

By David Hunt

Looking across the vast crowd on Saturday it was easy to focus on the differences. Here they were, young and old, male and female, rich and poor, liberal and conservative – people of diverse backgrounds, cultures and opinions. But, I reflected in a surge of patriotic fervor, this was a decidedly American crowd. Only in America could people come together in such a perfect union of democratic expression. Here, beneath the red, white and green neon they were one.

They all had glazed sugar on their faces.

It's one thing to watch TV news reports of the Krispy Kreme Challenge. It's quite another thing to find yourself in the middle of the action, trapped in a swelling sea of humanity in the doughnut shop parking lot on a cold winter morning. There I was, camera in hand, wedged between a woozy undergrad who seemed to be praying between bites to an unresponsive deity and a middle-aged mother of four who obviously took delight in a job that didn't require multitasking.

The way you go through a box of doughnuts, I decided, says a lot about the way you go through life.

Some – like the two cops on the edge of the crowd – approached their work with the studied patience of street-hardened professionals, taking down each doughnut like it was an enemy combatant. Others – like the 12-year-old girl with a sweet smile and twinkling blue eyes – rejoiced in the bounty before them, relishing the sugary taste and sticky texture of each perfectly crafted treat.

For some it was a job, for others a struggle. For a few, it was heaven on earth. In the end, all faced the classic Zen conundrum: To eat the doughnut hole, you must eat the doughnut whole.

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