Wayne Cloudt will never forget 1974. That’s the year he won the national lottery. The only problem was the prize was an all-expenses paid trip to Vietnam, courtesy of Uncle Sam. Cloudt’s lottery number was one of the final three drawn in the national draft before the system was eliminated in the mid-1970s. But he doesn’t have any regrets about serving his country through the U.S. Air Force. The soft-spoken patriot doesn’t wear his patriotism on his sleeve for all to see, though the walls of his award-winning bakery and restaurant in the Berkley Lake community of Gwinnett County do have a few subtle trapping of Americana, such as a flag, the Seal of the United States, and a reproduction of the Declaration of Independence. It’s his own special way of reminding friends and customers that they live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

“America is frequently called a democracy but that’s not accurate. We are actually a constitutional republic that protects the rights and freedoms of individuals. Democracy is mob rule … you only need 51 percent to get a majority vote, but the majority is not always right. Mobs don’t always make the right choices.

“Our form of government is what makes me so proud to be an American. We owe a debt of gratitude to our founding fathers for setting up a government that protects ourselves from the tyranny that is common in so many other nations.”

Wayne Cloudt, Shadowbrook Baptist Church, Suwanee

 

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