In a roundabout way, I just really amused myself and got a little trip down memory lane. Randomly, at the end of a post, Cook Eat Fret sent me to the following link:

Shoney‘s

Yeah, that Shoney’s. Now click the link. And once you’ve laughed, close the window. Otherwise the terrible music starts–complete with yokel-y whistling–and the pictures of the food start–and lord knows, you don’t want to scorch that onto your little eyeballs.

I’d laugh even harder, except: I kinda like Shoney’s. Or I used to, the last time I at there, which was probably at least half my lifetime ago (that’s 18 years, people–18 years! holy crapola).

Nearly every summer, we took this epic road trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Seaside Heights, New Jersey, to visit my grandmother and aunt and uncle and cousin. That’s a long-ass drive. But we would get to NJ in less than 72 hours, through sheer white-knuckle determination, with only a brief pit stop at my other uncle’s house in Tennessee or, later, North Carolina.

Now that I live without a car, I cannot fathom that kind of driving. I am too weak. I cannot leave Albuquerque at 6 a.m., and drive until I’m sleepy, at like 2 a.m., and then sleep for a little while in a rest area, and then drive on.

That morning after the nap in the rest area was when we’d usually hit the breakfast buffet at a Shoney’s. We were well in the South by then, and the air was steamy and sides of the highway were solid with kudzu. We’d made real progress, and Shoney’s proved that we were On the Road. I loved their biscuits. I loved those little French toast fingers. I loved their apple butter.

We never ate like that at home, naturally. It was all whole grains and green salads there, and we rarely even went out to eat. But road trips were a whole world of specially permitted food: We’d stock the cooler with ABQ’s finest, Golden Fried chicken (today better known as Golden Pride, since you can’t use the F-word), which we’d eat for dinner. After resting up at my uncle’s overnight, we’d head up the east coast, and we’d always break into the Coca-Cola and Peanut M&M’s right around Washington, DC–a little treat to get us through the beltway traffic.

A while ago, I noticed there was a Shoney’s in Albuquerque, near the two malls. Who knows how long it had been there? Maybe it was even there during the time we’d been making these road trips.

Would I go there today? No, I don’t think so. Not even for old time’s sake. The past is just too long a drive.