This Is My! South

This the "famous' Cheeseburger House over at the city line on Route 34 on the way to Ninety Six.

As hot and as dry as it has been, last week we worked at my friend's medieval garden and church grounds. Monday morning involved a lot of tiding up as the garden has been neglected for awhile. In the lawn, a zillion oak seedlings had sprouted so I used the hand sprayer with 2-4D - I think that is essentially agent orange, to kill them off. Then a lot of the perennials had out-grown their bounds and were hanging over the walks making it difficult to pass so we tied those up and cut some back. At the same time we collected and saved seed from the spent plants in preparation for next year's show and display. We pulled a few weeds and then it was about lunch time. Klaus always asks where I want to eat lunch and we almost always end up at Subway or Migs. But today we were headed for Ninety Six to visit a greenhouse/nursery there. It is called The House of Colors and acquired a couple of years ago by an sweet Oriental Lady who came here from Flushing, Long Island, New York. She's a member of the church and was donating plants for us to set around the beds and we were going over there to make selections from what she had left after the bedding season. So Klaus was wondering where we could stop that was on the way. I suggested The Cheeseburger House and I was almost surprised that he accepted. Since he had the slight stroke and a couple of stints put in his arteries, actually even before that, he usually wants to eat a more "healthy" fare of a salad, but I notice lately a switch away from that. You can only eat so much rabbit food.

It was when I first came here and we hired some young people from Lander to work nights and man the phones as we expanded our hours to take orders into the evening. One young guy, who was a character anyway, was always raving about this place, The Cheeseburger House, having the best burgers in town. I never heard anybody else say anything about it but often thought I should stop there and try them out sometime. Even more so lately as they started advertising on TV and talking about the same service and food being offered as when they started back in 1963. So here I was 30 years later about to fullfill that wish or desire.

As soon as we walked in the door I knew I was going to like the place and the atmosphere. There was a good lunch-time crowd and people also coming in for take-out. There was a bar, or counter with several stools and booths lining the wood paneled walls in the two rooms. Just about 9 booths so it was very cozy and the waitress immediately asked us what our drink order was before we got seated so it was there just about time we selected a spot to park. It was then I noticed the walls were decorated with old license plates from many states and a lot from the 1960s. There were also posters on the wall and a pretty good collection of coca cola stuff.

There was a poster of maybe my favorite movie. I always liked anything with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and I just happened to see this one again recently on TV. I think I enjoyed the character actors of the day as much as the stars. They were all such grest personalities. Ah, yes, they just don't make movies liked they used to. When I was a kid I was real star- struck at a very young age. I used to buy movie star magazines, cut out the pictures and put them in scrapbooks. I probably had all that stuff the whole time we lived at 97 Croton Ave, but when we moved as I was about 13 to much smaller quarters I had to leave much stuff behind. It had probably been a long time from those days so it's possible the scrapbooks disappeared before then. Just know I would like to see them now, but I still remember pretty much who all my favorites were and it was most of the big stars of the 40s and 50s - from Lana Turner to Marilyn Monroe.

This is what I got served. The Cheeseburger was pretty good. But, of course nowadays, with all the health scares, all the places fry their meat so much that there isn't much juice in them. So you can get better at home and even the whoppers and quarter pounders from Burger King and Hardees are better in that regard. You are certainly not going to have anything running down your chin unless it is too much ketchup you applied. The whole meal was just about $5.45 with a big helping of fries. If you passed on the slaw, you got an even bigger portion of fries. Refills on the diet coke were free and the waitress came and got the glasses and filled up again even without asking.

I paid Klaus my portion and as he went up to pay I walked out the door and took another look back first.

The girl in the green t-shirt was our primary waitress. I stepped outside and when Klaus didn't follow in a reasonable time I stepped back inside to see Klaus getting a big hug from some pretty lady. She didn't look at all familiar, but then realized it was someone who we worked with for quite a few years at Park. I still can't remember her name or where exactly she worked , but she left well before I retired to start up a house cleaning business, which I think she is still operating. Apparently I walked right past her as she was sitting in the first booth by the door. Think maybe her name was Kathy and one memory of her stands out. I worked Saturdays, but was very interested when Fuji came to Greenwood. They had an open house one Saturday and were even busing people from the civic center out to their facility and giving them tours of their place. So, perhaps, the only time I skipped work for a couple of hours and went to take the tour. If it's Kathy, then I met her on the bus and she along with her son and we went on the same tour of their plant together. When we were talking with her at The Cheeseburger House she was just talking about her daughter who just graduated from High School and was going to attend Lander. No mention of the son, but I hadn't even yet recalled that incident. At the end of the tour they were passing out helium -filled baloons of replicas of their dirigible so think I got 5 or as many as I could handle to take back to work and appease any of the ladies who missed me because of the "extended lunch".

We finally went on our way, picked up a bunch of petunias and begonias, enough to fill the bed of the pick-up truck and arranged to plant them at the church on Wednesday. Two other guys helped us that day and one decided to have lunch with us. As we discussed lunch places and had told him of where we ate Monday, he decided he wanted to go eat at the Cheeseburger House, too. So I was doubly surprised that Klaus was amenable again to going there. So after 30 years, now I was going to eat at The Cheeseburger House twice in the same week. I figured Klaus really liked being served by the pretty young waitresses. I got there first and was sitting at an outdoor table waiting for them to arrive. One guy pulled in the lot in his pick-up and walked past me. I thought he looked familiar so when we went inside he was sitting at the counter so I spoke to him and , sure enough, it turned out to be a guy who lives around the corner and up at the top of the hill. I had never met him , but saw him outside occasionally as I pass there every day at least once. He used to have a boat and I admired that the paint job was a match to his pick-up truck. I don't see the boat there anymore, but see he now also has a motorcycle and drives that, too. Had another good cheeseburger and soaked up the atmosphere. Even going out a big group of friendly construction guys were going in. It is apparently the place where a lot of good ole buys eat their lunch.

It seems all the rest of my time this week I have spent processing and loading pictures I took to my flickr site. Last weekend was Greenwood's Flower Festival Weekend. It is always held the third weekend in June in recent times. This was the first year I wasn't involved in anything so I could visit a lot of venues. Even when I was working at Park Seed I always had to work out there for the weekend so never got to see anything else. Now, especially that I got the picture bug, I really enjoyed seeing most of the home gardens on tours, spent a quiet Sunday morning taking lots of photos at Park Seed and got to the car show and the bluegrass festival and the craft, photo and art shows at the High School. There were a lot of other events I missed, but hopefully I'll still be ar0und next year to see them.

I hope you'll visit my photo site to see some of the pictures I took. It must have been well over 200 in total. A nice way to view them is to go to the few sets I have made and view them as a photostream. I hope you'll enjoy and keep coming back to see more. I'll leave you here now with a few of the pictures that are my favorites, well actually I like all my photos, so these are just representational.

Until next time, Stay Safe and Have a Happy, Dave

Water Lily in the Pond at Park Seed

I Want This One.

I wanted To Jump Into This Pool So Badly.

I'm Getting To Like The Way This Music Sounds.