On my list of things to have with me on a desert island are hamburgers – not the most practical or healthy choice. Hamburgers are comfort food, loaded with memories.
When my grandmother would stay with us, she would cook hamburgers and make french fries. We would get little cups of ketchup, just like going out.
The first hamburger place I really remember was Van’s. They had more than one location eventually, but the one I loved was on 15th Street, east of Lewis.
On special Saturday nights, I could go to Van’s with my Daddy. We stood in line, waiting for our order, listening to the waitress with her droning question, “do you want onions on that?” The guy who cooked the hamburgers was an artist with his spatula. He had long dark hair, combed back under his hat. Watching him take a ball of ground beef and throw it on the well used griddle, where he proceeded to flatten it, shape it and turn it, was an endless fascination. He worked like lightning with skills that I still admire. When they were done, the burgers were wrapped in wax paper and the fries were placed in the little paper envelope. Riding home with that greasy brown bag of burgers makes me drool even now.
But Pennington’s was the place where memories of the food mingle with all kinds of rites of growing up. Pennington’s Drive-In Restaurant was on Peoria and was the heart of my life for many years.
I started going there with my parents, but caught on easily that this was a cool place to be. We would order our hamburger in a basket with either onion rings (Pennington’s were uniquely thin and delicious) or fries. Whoever invented the basket for hamburgers deserves a place in museums of industrial design. Those colorful plastic baskets have never been improved on for ease while eating in the car. Our order would come with a stack of baskets of chicken, burgers, shrimp or any of Pennington’s favorites. Early on, the carhops were on roller skates, when that was the newest thing.
As I grew into junior high, Pennington’s became the hangout for Tulsa’s teens. When you’re not quite teen-aged, it was embarrassing to be there with your parents. Soc Row was the middle row, with pole position being the spot at the end near the restaurant. Here you could wave and honk at your friends as they cruised through, looking for a parking place and everyone could see that you were there. I confess that Daddy thought this was hilarious and I can remember him parking in the prime place, yelling “Whee” as the teenaged girls giggled by. I, of course, was sitting on the floor of the car, mortified and sure that my future life was ruined. Daddy, Daddy. Silly Daddy.
This was my home away from home all the way through high school. We raced to get there and back on our 30 minute lunch hour. If I ran an errand for my mother after school, it involved picking up a friend and stopping at Pennington’s. We went on dates that began or ended there, we piled in cars after football games to drive through, honking our school honk. We decorated our parents’ cars with our social club colors and drove through during our annual rush of new pledges. In the summer, we cruised Peoria in the evenings, looping through Pennington’s as we searched for our other cruising friends. It was where you could see who was with who and you could be seen. Reputations were made there!
We knew the Penningtons, Arch and Lola, and could see them inside behind the counter. Sherry was everyone’s favorite carhop and I’m sure she got more than her share of cocky teenaged boys trying to show her how grown up they were. We weren’t allowed to get out of our cars, for fear of being approached by Jake, the security guard. It was a time when we listened to the rules, although some tried to push him to his limits.
Pennington’s had great food, but my hamburgers, dinner rolls, vanilla Dr. Peppers, black bottom pie and onion rings are interwoven with the memories of first dates, special dates, cruising through with cars full of friends just to see who was there or who could see us, and, even the times with my parents. I miss the old places…
Confetti Thoughts 