by jphilo | May 8, 2015 | Reflections on the Past
Funny, isn’t it, how our preferences change over the years? As a kid, a day like the one described below would have been a dream come true. Today, even more than 7 years ago when this story first posted, the thought of 3 McDonalds meals in 1 day turns my stomach. How about yours?
Wednesday morning, my brother and mom picked me up at 6:15 to attend my uncle’s funeral. We spent most of the day on the road. In the course of the trip, we realize a dream that would make most seven-year-olds salivate. We ate three meals at McDonalds.
In our family, this accomplishment is earth-shattering news. My siblings and I spent most of our childhoods begging to eat at McDonalds. Since the closest one was 25 miles away in Sioux City and money was tight, our pleas fell on deaf ears. Except, of course, when Mom had saved up for a big city shopping trip. Then, if we were also running short of the straws for Dad, we ate lunch at McDonalds with strict orders to save the straws, ketchup packets, plastic spoons, extra napkins and anything else not nailed to the floor.
Our taste buds have changed in the intervening years, so we weren’t thinking of Golden Arches when we started out Wednesday. Later, my brother said he did have the Clear Lake McDonalds in mind since his mother-in-law would be there with her breakfast gang. She was, and we had a nice visit. My yogurt cup was delicious.
We arrived at our destination around noon. With the post-funeral light lunch three or more hours away, we decided to get something to tide us over. Pipestone, Minnesota’s dining options are limited. Once again, we chose McDonald’s. Their side salads are pretty good, I discovered.
At the church, Mom had time to visit with her sister-in-law before the funeral. The service was sweet and touching, a good end to my uncle’s life lived long and well. The cemetery was beautiful with dozens of fern peonies buds opening to the warm and welcome sun. During lunch back at the church, we chatted with relatives more than we ate and didn’t leave until after 5:00. By 8:30 we were close to Albert Lea, hungry as bears. Mom suggested we stop at the travel plaza that housed several fast food places. We agreed, but we weren’t hungry for Pizza Hut. We were hungry for Cold Stone Creamery ice cream, but after quick waistline checks we shook our heads.
Our third option was–you guessed it–McDonalds. I ordered a salad with grilled chicken, then caved and added a large fries to split with Mom. As we carried our food to the car, my brother said, “I think this a new record. Three McDonalds meals in one day.”
At that moment I realized we are getting really old. Forty years ago, a day like this would have thrilled us. These days it makes us green around the gills. No doubt about it, we’re slipping. I have proof. We didn’t even save our straws.
What childhood dream would be a nightmare for you now? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Jun 19, 2014 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
- Mom demonstrated an advantage of memory loss when someone at our family reunion showed her the Courtin’ Onions post from last Friday. Her response to the tale that exasperated her when it was first written? “That’s a cute story, Jolene. Thanks for writing it.”
- This weekend at a McDonald’s in a city that shall remain unnamed, I ordered the $1.00 soda and handed the server a dollar bill. She said, “That will be 64¢,” rang it up, then handed over a cup and the change. It takes a lot to render me speechless, but that did the trick.
- For the next 2 days, I’m presenting and learning at the Iowa Christian Writers Conference with Cec Murphy, Shelly Beach, Wanda Sanchez, Mary Kenyon Potter, and other great workshop leaders. No doubt, their collective wisdom will render me speechless once again.
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by jphilo | Jan 30, 2014 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
- Tuesday morning, Mom and I witnessed the installation of the golden arches at the new McDonald’s in Ankeny. I thought it was a historic moment. Mom? Not so much.
- The Mac turned 30 this week. The month it debuted, Hiram and I were parents to a 1 1/2 year old, and getting him ready for his third surgery. Hiram was a caseworker at Sky Ranch for Boys. I was teaching my students (grades K–2) how to insert a “floppy disk” into the “external disk drive” to “boot up” the country school’s brand spanking new Apple + computer…Our baby boy’s now a daddy, Hiram’s a nurse, and I’m a writer. One of my former students is now the teacher where I once taught. That country school provides every child with a computer, many of them Macs. No floppy disks, no external disk drives, and the students are showing the teacher how the computer works. My, how times change!
- Folk singer Pete Seeger died this week at age 94. He introduced so many songs that are now integral to American music. With each airing of a Seeger tribute, This Land Is Your Land brings back vivid memories of our 4th grade class is singing at top voice directed by Mrs. Swensen. The boys are wearing plain shirts, trousers, and high tops. The girls wear cotton dresses, tights, and every day shoes. And we’re all convinced that if we ask our parents, they’ll plan summer vacation to see the New York island, California, the redwood forests, and the gulf stream waters. Why are we so sure? Because the song says this land belongs to you and me!
What’s your favorite Pete Seeger song? Leave a comment.
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by jphilo | Sep 24, 2009 | Current Events
A recent entry at Justin Taylor’s blog Between Two Worlds almost blew my socks off. He quoted from a blog entry by Stephen Von Worley. Von Worley was contemplating the McDonaldization of America and decided to locate the farthest point from an Mc Donalds in the contiguous United States. Here’s what he found:
As expected, McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.
For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car! Suffer a Big Mac Attack out there, and you’re hurtin’ for certain! For a coupla hours, at least, unless graced by the tender blessings of “manna from heaven” – that is, a fast food air drop from the Medi-Copter.
So what’s the big deal? Those “tiny hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley” were part of our old South Dakota stomping grounds. Our personal hamlet, Camp Crook, was about 75 miles straight west of Meadow, much tinier than the McFarthest spot, and didn’t have nearly as many paved roads.
What were we doing for the first three precarious years of Allen’s life, living so far from civilization? Answer: We didn’t know how bad we had it. Like Stephen Von Worley, we thought the most isolated part of the United States was far, far away in the rugged west, not in our back yard.
If we had known the truth, would we have skedaddled sooner than we did? Maybe, but as Hiram said when he read the report, “There we were on the edge of nowhere and look at the support we received from the people.” Maybe they supported us because they weren’t distracted by civilization – McDonalds and movies and shopping malls and inconsequentials – and had time to prop up two bewildered young parents day after difficult day.
Whatever the reasons, when I think of our seven years near the McFarthest Spot and the way the far flung community rallied round us, the truth is evident. During those years we didn’t leave civilization. We found it.
