22 January 2010

Nothing Much Else Happened: January 22, 1978

Today, Mom, Dad, Laura and I went to go see the opera version of "Cinderella." It was pretty interesting, and different because instead of having a wicked stepmother, she has a wicked stepfather. Then, before we left, we had dinner at the "Railroader", where everything was lousy except the food. On the way back, we listened to "Dr. Demento." Right before we dropped Laura off, we kissed goodnight, and she left.

***

Can't you just feel the passion?

The Railroader was a small chain of restaurants in southern California in the 1970s. It was, by far, my favorite place to eat. Each restaurant consisted of an actual (but "dry-docked") railway dining car, where people were served their burger-oriented food, and a connected actual caboose, which served as a waiting room (and jungle-gym). The waitresses wore "engineer" uniforms, except modified to wear shorts. Kids received hats like the paper crowns one gets at Burger King—except instead of a crown the hat looked like a train engineer's cap.

Remarkably, there is nothing—NOTHING—about the Railroader chain on the Internet. Not even a photograph. If anyone else remembers this place, I'd love to hear about it.

All punctuation and spelling has been retained precisely as I wrote it 32 years ago at age 12.

Look at me—I'm doing a project. Here was the start of the project.

To view the next day click: January 23, 1978

No comments: