Back in the" good old days" when our famous Midwest Maid-Rites were still good, they cost 25 cents, or on Sundays 5 for a buck. They were bigger, better and freshly made on the premises. Now the Maid-Rite stores around here receive the pre-seasoned and mixed meat in a sausage-like tube casing that is squeezed out like toothpaste. Yum, yum! Doesn't that sound like delicious? They don't taste anything like they used to. What does? And they're close to $3.00 a copy now!
When I was a junior in high school during the mid-1960's, I REALLY wanted a 1931 Model A Coupe that a senior in school was selling. My father said he'd help me buy it if I got a part-time job after school to contribute funds. At a whopping starting 50 cents per hour, I began working at the local Sandy's restaurant, a chain which I now understand was founded by disgruntled former McDonald's franchise owners. Their target: taking down McDonald's. Not just because I worked there, but Sandy's was much better than McDonald's. During their breaks, the employees at McDonald's would come over to Sandy's for their burgers, rather than eat their own - even with their employee discount! What does that tell you? I was heart-broken when Sandy's was purchased by Hardee's in the early 1970's, who promptly dismantled the chain. I tried a Hardee's burger once soon after. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO disgustingly bad that in the 45+ years since, I have NEVER gone back. I still single-handedly keep most fast food restaurants solvent, but I refuse to ever give Hardee's a second chance. Yeah, it was that bad. I'm not sure, but I think I saw the burger that I had just thrown away crawl back out of the garbage container.

My tastes and taste buds have not changed since I was a teenager. I still love and appreciate a good burger. My mother was the world's worst cook (around our house we prayed AFTER we ate), so growing up, I virtually lived in fast food restaurants and local mom and pop hamburger shops, spending my weekly allowance and grass cutting money to survive. (J's Stop 'N Eat and Ted's Drive-In were the best around here). None of the surviving burger places and chains from my youth can come even close to how good they used to be. And this is not just selective wishful memory at work here! I can't count the number of times in the last 20 years that I simply threw a half-eaten McDonald's burger away because it was so terrible. Other chains have not escaped that disgrace, either. (How come Culver's insists of over-cooking their burgers to point of being cinders?) I don't eat burgers nearly as much as I did even 10 years ago. Why did restaurants ruin what brought them to the party in the first place? Very depressing for a dedicated burger/French fry lover like myself. And no, I am not over-weight or diabetic - yet. Loving fried foods doesn't automatically doom one to weight and health problems.
Don't even get me started on the demise of French fries in this country!
O.K. Enough grousing about the "good old days". Back to Model T and A business...
Marshall