Dairy Queen Nights

According to a recent article in the Tassanoxie Sentinel, our fair city is part of a micropolitan community. I’ve been wondering if this is a fancy phrase for getting too big for your britches. Not that I’m complaining. Being part of a micropolitan community means lots of places to eat and shop. Something we didn’t have before we became a part of a micropolitan community.


I can remember when the only place to get a hamburger was the Dairy Queen. It was one of those drive ups. You parked the car, got out and went up to one of the windows to place your order. The DQ closed up tight as a drum at 10 p.m. on weekends and 9 p.m. on weekdays. Convincing your mom and dad you got home past midnight because you stopped at the DQ for something to eat didn’t work, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.


Since everything else was closed, there wasn’t much reason for us kids to be out after 10 p.m. Unless we were up to NO GOOD. Which we usually were. About the time I graduated, we got a 7-11. Hallelujah! A place that stayed open until 11 p.m.


That 7-11 made it a whole lot easier to claim we’d stopped by the store for a snack which ran us late. Looking back, I doubt my parents believed for a minute that’s where I was with whoever I was dating. And I’m grateful cell phones with GPS were a long way in the future.

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