Those Good Old 'Weiners"

Several days ago Dan on his blog Plainfield Today mentioned The Texas Weiners' 85th anniversary. I emailed him a short note about memories of 50-60 years ago that his article evoked.

In the 50s we lived on the 1000 block of Kenyon Ave. Our house was a solid brick edifice which had been built by Jerry(?) Manning a leading contractor/mason of the pre-war years. There was a three car garage in the back, that was deep enough for Ford Model T or A Truck but not for anything much bigger. In the late 60s/early 70s we owned a Mercury Marquis as the family car. When it was all the way in the garage the rear end was outside. Some other time I may write about my cars, but that is not today's subject.

During the 50s it was my policy to have every weekday evening a "formal" 6 pm dinner with our family of four children. At least two nights a week I returned to my office about 7PM to see patients. Those were the days when doctors made house calls and had evening office hours to accommodate patients that were employed during the day time.In those years the office visit was usually a $5.00 fee, irrespective of the time spent with the patient, but that is the subject of another blog.

All of this is making a short story longer, so to get back to the "Texas Weiners", after I had seen my last patient and my nurse and I had closed the office, I would drive down to Watchung and Front and purchase 7 (2 for me) of those unique chili and raw onion swamped oily dogs.

Our kids ranging from about 10 to 2 were in bed, but not sleeping. When they heard my car in the driveway they would rush downstairs for their awaited treat. They so loved those dogs and my bringing them home at night that to this day they still talk about them. In fact last year my daughter who has lived in Virginia for about 35 years on a visit here made a point to stop downtown to buy a weiner. She said it was as good as ever.

I was going to mention the air raid siren on a pole nearer Randolph Road , another memory for another day.

If you think I misspelled "Weiner" look at the store sign.