White Castle Hamburgers and Chevrolets

Last week while making my required visit and contribution to Wal-Mart, I happened by the breakfast frozen food section and noticed that nestled among the Jimmy Dean sausages was a box marked "White Castle." Further inspection showed it to be frozen "White Castle Hamburgers" just waiting to be nuked in my microwave.

I stopped. Stunned by memories of past days when I had almost no money, but a boundless future... You see, once upon a time a White Castle Hamburger in Oklahoma City cost nine cents. Yes. A nickel and 4 pennies.

While attending Prep school in Norman, two buddies and I managed to scrape up enough cash to buy an ancient Chevy of very uncertain history. Although relatively clean it had been painted what is often referred to as "British Racing Green," with a brush. Yes, that's right. It had been hand painted.

Now the investment in the car was bad enough, but the cost of gas and oil was fearsome. In fact, it kept us nearly broke. But for a buck and a dime you could get a bag of some of the best hamburgers ever made and a cup of coffee that your momma would envy. We ate'em all weekend long... Dinner on Friday, breakfast on Saturday and Sunday and dinner on Saturday night. They went extra good with the 3.2 beverage the natives called beer.

The car gave us a leg up over our classmates. We could get to Oklahoma City and offer any young ladies who dared associate with us transportation from their homes, after the required interrogation from their parents, of course. I have often thought that these good folks should have been turned loose on the jailbirds in GITMO. Five minutes with them and the truth of who the miscreants were, who their family was four generations back and their plans and ambitions would be laid bare for the world to see.

But, having few, if any Lefties around back then no one wrote articles in the local paper about us being assumed guilty. Of course, just as Bush and 100% of the intelligent people in the world know the terrorists have evil intentions towards us, the young ladies and their parents understood that we were boys and the the young ladies provided, shall we say, a great fascination for us.

One day three of the young ladies, in an effort to domesticate us, proposed a picnic on the beach of what was called a "lake." They provided the food and their company and we provided transportation and a case of beer. Since none of the girls drank that left it to us future world leaders to drink the case of beer... In about three hours. Then it became time to take the object of our desires home, or face the wraith of Mom and Dad.

The only problem we had was that the Chevy had went to the levy and the levy was like quicksand. Our means of transport was buried to its running boards and no amount of pushing and backing would get it out. But just as we were considering sending one of us for help a Sheriff's Patrol showed up. A Deputy got out, took a look at the mess we were in, laughed at us and got a shovel and a rope out of his car's trunk. With a little digging and pulling we got the car on solid ground. The Deputy then told us to be sure and clean up the mess we had made, and with a "be careful on the way home," drove off.

I have often wondered what would have happened if that were today. Most likely we would have been arrested for DUI or some related offense, the girls would have had to call their parents for a ride home and the US Navy would have ended our budding careers as defenders of the free world.

And youngsters can't understand why we old folks often speak of the "good old days."

We got our dates home only slightly late and one of the families let us clean up, perhaps in recognition that we were more a threat to ourselves than to their daughters. And to prove that true love is often found in a Chevrolet, one of my buds and his date kept in touch and eventually married.

The Deputy has never known the good he did. Maybe I'll run into him on the other side and have a chance to say, "Thanks. You did more good than you could have ever known."

Hat tip to Cardomain. It is possible, though highly unlikely, that this beautiflly restored '36 Chevy was once owned by three Navy guys.