That Was Then

We owned a Luncheonette just outside the gate  of an army base and it was also the end of the line for the public buses.  In the 40’s and 50’s at around 11:30 PM, my parents would begin cooking and wrapping hamburgers in wax paper.  Soon the buses filled with soldiers would arrive and after drinking too much, they would stop into our place and order hamburgers.  Four, five, six at a time.  They were drunk and in a hurry to get back on base before the midnight curfew.  You could say, we were one of the first fast food burger joints.  Being the industrious sort, my father also had a couple of spare bedrooms upstairs and hired really good looking waitresses, if you get my drift.  In the 40’s and 50’s my family was pretty well off.

When I was eight years old in 1959,  the Navy built a reserve training center across the street from my home in Fort Rodman. My father was given as many wood pallets as he wanted by the construction company.  My job was to take them apart, take all the nails out and pile the wood neatly behind one of our garages.  Twenty five years later, I had to remove all those 2×4’s and take them to the dump. As far as I know, we never used one of them.

I rode my bike by the building today and above is all that is left.  I thought is would be a bit melancholy but I felt nothing.  Just another demo of an out of date brick building.  The place didn’t even look good new with it’s blue windows.  My two story home is still across the street and except for the color and a deck, it’s still looks the same.  It’s an ice cream joint now.  There is a good google 360 map HERE.  It’s right on the tip of the peninsula below.