I remember moving from St. Paul, Minnesota, where my Dad had worked for 3M Company, to Durham, North Carolina, where my Dad began a new job, in 1970. In Durham, we were introduced to Hardee's, the fast food joint.
Before that, I don't remember any big deal being made about fast food places except for in the mid-1960s, when we lived in my hometown of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, and had to drive about an hour to Allentown to try out a McDonald's, the "snap snap snap happy place," from which I still remember the finely minced onions and little dabs of ketchup and mustard on a hamburger the size of what would now be called a snackburger. "McDonald's is my kind of place," went the jingle then.
In St. Paul, the flagship Target stores had eleven cent milkshakes in the late 1960s, but there were certainly no Hardee's, nor Wendy's nor anything like what has popped up around the country on practically every block since then.
North Carolina's Hardee's had ad campaigns featuring Gilbert Giddyup, Speedy McGreedy and Supermouth, something seemingly right out of Electric Company. In middle school, there were science teachers named Mr. Sink ("Big Bill Sink / as big as a tree / he knows everything / from A to B") and Mr. Gilbert -- the latter became known as Gilbert Giddyup, thanks to Hardee's.
Hardee's is now part of an empire, linked up with Carl's Jr. in the Western U.S., and though I'm not sure that Carl's Jr. makes any real sense as a name, specifically, I do know that both Carl's and Hardee's feature the same imperial logo, the Smiling Star. American cuisine, fast food style . . .
Today's Rune: Joy / Smiling Star.
6 comments:
As a fellow alum of Mr. Sink's science class (and Gilbert Giddyup's) - this tool me back. I remember the Big Bill Sink song as:
"Big as a bear/tall as a tree/knew everything from A to B/Big Bill..."
McDonald's used to be enough of a drive that my parents didn't want to go there very often. Too far, on the wrong side of a busy thoroughfare. McDonald's has never been as good as it was on those rare occasions when we'd go there.
There's one a block from my office and one not too far from my home and I rarely go to either these days.
Ah, memory is a shifty thing. Thanks, Evan, you should know since you composed this particular ditty, eh?
Sidney, indeed.
Lana and I were talking about Hardee's just yesterday. They don't have 'em down here but when I was in Arkansas it was my favorite burger chain.
The first time I saw a Hardee's was in my central Illinois college town of Charleston, Illinois. There was a 24-hour Hardee's on the edge of campus that was, of course, packed with drunk college students at 1 am, when the bars closed.
Whenever we drive into Minneapolis to see my in-laws, my wife quizzes my stepdaughter on what the three "M's" of 3M mean.
If I had a choice between a Hardee's hamburger or McDonald's hamburger, I'd pick Hardee's. Why'd they close in Michigan anyway?
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