I have written a lot about my childhood, some things about my ancestors and some about being a young mother. I been very fortunate to have had a good life. I have developed a sense of humor over the years and have accepted what cards I have been dealt. However, there was one hand that was super fantastic and that was the Royal Flush of Sweezies.
Lunch tickets were thirty-five cents at the school. Sweezies charged thirty-five cents for a hamburger and a box of chocolate milk. I cannot possibly describe the hamburgers, however I will try to describe the building, the ambience the seating and the looks of the hamburgers.
Going to Sweezies was alright with my mother just once in awhile because she didn’t think it was a nutritious meal (she was absolutely right) and she didn’t think it was enough food to get me through the day (she was right again).
The building was white with a window that faced the school. You could see the man probably Mr. Sweezy frying hamburgers in tallow. Yes, he used beef fat to fry the hamburgers in. He wore a paper hat, an apron that was completely stained with grease. Did he have a little mustache? I can’t remember for sure, but he didn’t talk much, he was too busy getting the hamburgers out for the customers. The hamburger meat was rolled in little meat balls. He took his heavy spatula and flattened the meat balls into hamburgers and in little less than two minutes a miracle was born. A Sweezie’s Hamburger!He had the hamburger buns to the side of the grill. They were slopped with grease to make them to die for. There were about twelve to fourteen stools and no tables or booths that I remember. That was fine because the hamburgers were so delicious that you downed them in two bites, slurped the chocolate milk as fast as you could and ran back to school. As I am sitting here actually seeing the inside of that little hamburger joint I am shaking my head wishing that I could go back just one more time for a burger and chocolate milk.
They were delicious - would love to have one!!! The place has been gone for quite a few years now. They had the best homemade pie that you have ever tasted - the Brennaman Sisters who lived across the street from my parents on Sioux Valley Drive made them every day for years and years and I can remember someone coming to pick them up and loading the car--I think that they are all deceased now too. People would call ahead and have a certain piece of pie saved for them as they went so fast when the noon crowd would come!!! That end of main street always smelled SOOO good!!
ReplyDeleteJo
You know Jo I don't remember the pies at all, but when you said that end of main street always smelled so good it turned on my senses and I could actually smell those delicious burgers.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in third grade, I talked Mom into rolling all my expenses into my weekly allowance. Grown up stuff. So up front I got my $0.25 for the Saturday movie, and what ever it cost to go roller skating on Friday night, as well as my lunch money! I had to budget or miss out. I never missed out on Sweezies! You could get a melted cheese sandwich with everything on it piled high for $0.10. A melted cheese was a cheese burger without the burger. But it seemed to taste just as good!
ReplyDeleteAcross Main Street from Sweezies was the American movie theater. And as Jo says on Friday and Saturday night the hamburger and popcorn smells on that end of Main Street were just amazing!
And you know what made those hamburgers THE BEST??? Bauman's Bakery hamburger buns -- the same ones we used at Louie's when Jo and I worked there. Remember??? Those Maid-Rites were good too. But the buns were THE BEST!
ReplyDeletePam
Oh, Pam I forgot I don't know how I could have forgotten those buns!!! The Maid-Rites were really good. See it's always the really greasy stuff that I think tastes really yummy and sticks not only in my arteries but in my memory BUT WHERE IN THE HECK WAS LOUIE'S?
ReplyDelete