My Druthers

My druthers—what an odd word. When I looked up the derivation of the phrase I found out that Druthers was also the name of a fast food restaurant—now defunct. A bit more searching and I found someone who loved their fish sandwich—fried fish with three pickles between two pieces of white bread and smothered with ketchup.

Before becoming Druthers it was called Burger Queen. They changed the name because they sold other items besides burgers. There's one Druther's Restaurant left in Campbellsville, Kentucky. One restaurant unwilling to release the past, but its no longer a franchise.

I never ate at a Druthers or Burger Queen, but once on a trip down to Montreat, North Carolina we stopped for a foot long hotdog at a small family roadside grill. The dog sat in the longest bun—an inch on either end. I expect that extra length was needed because of all the fixings.

And when I was growing up in the Bronx we went to a local Chinese Restaurant on special occasions. Their menu offered a plethora of choices—if you chose one item from group A and one from group B it cost less than two items from group B. The selection process could take fifteen minutes—or until my mother announced two minutes left.

My favorite "defunct" restaurant wasn't a restaurant, but a cart that had a pot of hot jelly ready for dipping. The jelly man dipped apples on a stick into the hot jelly and the kids lined up to buy the apples. Sometimes he sold dipped marshmallows or figs. I loved watching him twirl the stick—spin it like a gyroscope— so that the jelly didn't drip.

You can still buy jellied apples, but I expect that a remembered taste might lord it over the present taste.