<p>After 51 years of yelling the familiar question, Whatll ya have?, Erby Walker is hanging up his white Varsity apron.</p><p>The worlds fastest counterman planned to retire Wednesday _ after a career of serving hot dogs at the downtown Atlanta fast-food landmark to folks including Muhammad Ali, Burt Reynolds, Elizabeth Dole and President Clinton.</p><p>I hate to go, said Walker, 66. But I know I need to go. Because I aint getting no younger.</p><p>With lightning speed working the express line, Walker probably waited on more than 1,000 customers on an average day and perhaps as many as 5,000 on Georgia Tech football Saturdays, said his supervisor, Elton Blue Drayton.</p><p>Theres still no one who can beat him, he said.</p><p>The Varsitys not going to seem like the Varsity without him, said Nancy Simms, Varsity president and the daughter of its founder, W. Frank Gordy. Hes just loved by people.</p><p>Walker was 15 when he started his Varsity career on Dec. 20, 1952, by sweeping up the TV room. He advanced from sweeping to the Coca-Cola bottle room to the kitchen, where he cooked hot dogs. In the 1960s, he moved up to the counter as desegregation spread across the South.</p><p>He can recite every drink the menu in one sentence. And he used to send customers back to the end of the line if they werent ready to order.</p><p>People are not as friendly as they were back in the old days, Walker said. You do something like that now, you might get snatched over the counter.</p><p>David Davis, 51, of Sandy Springs said that he would stop at the Varsity after choir practice as a boy to watch Walker.</p><p>I recall standing there in line practicing my order so as not to get it wrong when he shouted, Whatll ya have, whatll ya have? at me, he said.</p><p>While Walkers speed is known among customers, his perfectionism is legendary among his co-workers.</p><p>The hot dog has to be on a soft bun, good and hot, Drayton said. The mustard straight down the middle of the chili.</p><p>With retirement, Walker doesnt plan to give up hot dogs. Before a heart attack in 1990, he eat 10 to 12 hot dogs a day, he said.</p><p>When the doctor told him to lay off the dogs, Walker retorted, You might as well kill me now.</p><p>He cut back to six: Two for breakfast, two for lunch, and two in the evening.</p><p>Just as Walker cut back on the hot dogs, he decreased his work schedule leading up to his retirement to four days, starting before 7 a.m.</p><p>With the New Year, hell be on the other side of the counter when he orders his beloved hot dogs _ with onions. Or will he?</p><p>I might _ if I get bored enough, if I get so lonesome at the house there, looking at the wall _ I might ask them to let me work a couple of hours a day, he said.</p>
