July 22, 2022
“Back When…And Then”
By Jim Culp
DO you remember when fast food was really good food?
When I was a kid…KFC was awesome, and Pizza Hut was REALLY
awesome. You didn’t order a Supreme and not have cheese all the way to the
crust, and there was a large handful of every topping you ordered…not 2-3
pieces scattered out on a 14” piece of dough. Sauce was so good that you
wouldn’t spill a drop. The salad bar had good crisp lettuce and great toppings.
Teenagers wanted jobs in all these places, because then they had money that was
theirs.
KFC chicken was so
good, you finished every piece down to the bone. You didn’t need so much sauce
in those days because the food was so good.
Then came Long John Silvers. Golden fried pieces of cod,
and real chicken in the tenders. Great hushpuppies, and absolutely incomparable
coleslaw.
You could get two hamburgers at McDonalds for 99 cents, and
they tasted good. McDonalds french fries were a cardboard pouch of delicious
treats.
When our family moved to Silver City NM in 1978, we
discovered Blakes Lota burger and Sonic Drive in. The hamburgers at both these
places were mind blowing. You wanted to literally eat every meal at one of
these places.
There were diners, hotel diners, and nice restaurants, but
we kids didn’t even care to go to any of them because the fast-food places had
great food. Sure, we liked the steak house and the hotel diner that had all you
can eat shrimp, but we didn’t care about them places…again…because fast food
was good.
Time went by…corporations wanted more and more money…and
they got it. The little hamburgers at McDonalds became 79 cents each. The
french fries that were once 59 cents were not $1.75.
Wages for fast food workers declined, and quality became
something that had to be inside a person to implement (taught at home) and not
a standard. Kids started demanding everything that working adults had, and weak
parents gave in to them. Rich kids at school became the most popular, and clubs
formed. You only got invited to Bobby’s house (when his parents were out of
town) if you had something to give, or money to spend. The same fast-food
restaurants that starred in the ‘70s were losing sales faster than they could
hold on. You started seeing more senior citizens fill the role previously held
my teenagers. Kmart and TG&Y had primarily 50–60-year-old employees.
By 1987, our little town had rapidly declined to a few
stores, and teenagers were coming back to work; but didn’t have anywhere near
the desire to please their customer that I wish to rent an apartment at the
Vatican. Those great tasting fast food meals were replaced with very expensive
meals to pay employees more money. You would think that the employees improved
and made these places thousands of dollars. The absolute opposite occurred… the
businesses failed because a large part of their work force demanded more and
more until the management personnel said “enough.”
When I visited my “second hometown” of Silver City, NM (I
was born in El Paso, TX) in 1992, it was falling into a miniature depression.
The only restaurants WERE fast food, the meals were disgusting to say the least.
Prices at stores were phenomenal, and unemployment was at deplorable levels.
When I went there in 2017 to complete my degree, it was a
ghost of what it had been when I was a teenager. Meth had taken its toll, and
very few of the people I knew there were around anymore. The only fast-food
places left were McDonald’s, Sonic, and Taco Bell…and they were all in
deplorable locations and had the lowest quality standards that I had witnessed
thus far in my lifetime. I was at least happy to find Mom and Pop Mexican
restaurants that had opened, and they were doing huge business because of local
happy customers. I spent many hours in my dorm room contemplating the rise and
fall of a geographical era, and the slow start to re-surge that was happening.
-Jim
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