Friday, August 22, 2008

Article #18 Fast Food and Drive-ins

In the good old days, mom cooked all the food the family ate. Eating out at a restaurant was a rare occasion calling for wearing nice clothes, and your best table manners. Now we’ve changed into a society that eats out several times a week at fast food restaurants dressed in jeans or brings home pre-cooked food almost daily. Drive-ins are a way of life for fast food, cleaners, banks and most of our business dealings.

I ate my first hamburger in 1948 at a drugstore soda fountain counter in Eureka, Utah. It came complete with onions, lettuce, tomato and pickles and cost less than a quarter, with potato chips and a soft drink. What a treat to eat out. McDonalds came to my town in California in 1955. Hamburgers were then fifteen cents each and an instant hit because many moms had gone back to work during and after World War II. They loved the thought of hot food for the family picked up on the way home from work. My widowed mom and I enjoyed eating out at McDonalds when she returned home from her shift as a telephone operator. 

Drive-in restaurants were the big deal in the 1950s. Teens loved to hang out in their parent’s car or in their own car, if they had one. Listening to the latest hit tunes, most likely Elvis or the Four Lettermen, while flirting with their high school friends was a favorite past time. Young ladies employed as carhops, some wearing roller skates, came to your car window and took your food order. Later, they brought your food out to you, and picked up your tray when you put your lights on. What fun to eat in your car!

My first real job in my teens was as an A & W Root Beer Drive-in carhop. Dressed in my brown and orange uniform with its cute cap, I really thought I had arrived. I found out that it was hard work being a carhop and not that profitable. I think I made about a dollar an hour plus tips. Carrying heavy trays out to carefully place on car windows, then picking them up later, and dealing with disgruntled customers wasn’t as enjoyable as it looked. But I did get free lunches with all the root beer in frosty mugs that I could drink.

6 comments:

  1. it was a quick fix of the time. Today fast food market is probably #1 on selling crappy food and killing people right and left. I would never ever imagine taking my child to one of them. food is genetically modified corn feed cows, tortured chickens feed with same corn, and soda sweetened with the same corn.. why would one put all that corn in their precious bodies. I have eaten in these places but I did not know any better then. I wish there were an alternative fast food place with good food that we can all go and enjoy once in a while, but I am sure it would not be a lucrative business!

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  2. I love that picture of you in your carhop outfit! When I was a kid in Baton Rouge, we sometimes went to "Hoppers," which had curb-service. It always seemed like a special treat back then.

    For health reasons, I don't go to fast food places too often. But I am glad that places like McDonalds do offer some better choices now. Their salads w/low fat dressings are pretty good.

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  3. Another great post, Lin. You look so cue in that outfit.

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  4. What a cutie Lin..We had a drive-in where the girls came on skates. That was a rare treat, but it was a fun!

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  5. brilliant blog special, I want you all the best! Steven

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  6. In Orofino ID there was an A&W we would go to for very special treats. I always got the foot long hot dog. I loved that they would bring the food to the car, for a little 5 year old child that was something neat :)

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