Rant #2,635: Eaten Alive

Happy April 15!
 
This used to be tax day, where you had to have your taxes for the previous year filed in order to not get a penalty for lateness.
 
But due to COVID, the government has given us extra time to file—and in some cases, to hang ourselves—so April 15 does not carry the weight that it once had.
 
And Happy Birthday today to a couple of people I happen to know: a long-time friend and one of my nephews.
 
Today is their BIG day, and I have to ask: What were their parents thinking by having them on what once was tax day?
 
Things happen for a reason, I guess.
 
Heck, my mother has told me time and time again that I could have easily been born earlier, but that I was so cozy where I was that I simply had no intention of making my debut as early as I could have.
 
But that’s another story for another time.
 
Anyway, what else noteworthy happened on April 15?
 
For the McDonald’s hamburger chain, this is a huge day, and that being said, if you are a fan of fast food, then April 15 has to be a day to celebrate.
 
Back in 1955—when fast food wasn’t even thought of as a concept—Ray Kroc opened his first franchised restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill.
 
It was so successful at quickly dispensing hamburgers and other food items that it led to another restaurant, and then another, and then another, until the MacDonald’s hamburger chain became the largest and most successful in the country.
 
The gimmick sandwiches—like the Big Mac—came later, but getting out hamburgers and fries with unseen to that time speed—and at a good price—was revolutionary for its concept, and that speed at a relatively cheap price continues to be the backbone of fast food to this day.
 
There were other fast foods that came before McDonald’s—for one, White Castle dates its birth to 1921—but McDonald’s made the burgeoning fast food industry both fashionable and successful, although it really took until the early 1970s for the concept to take off as our society became more mobile.
 
The idea for getting such food out quickly probably originated with the aforementioned White Castle, and you just know that Kroc viewed what that chain was able to do—both food-wise and franchise-wise—and adapted it for his concept.
 
In fact, a few years ago, Time Magazine pretty much acknowledged this, stating that the White Castle hamburger—now known as a “slider”—was the “most influential burger” of all time, leading the way for full-sized hamburgers to be produced like they were by McDonald’s and the entire fast food industry years later.
 
What was the first McDonald’s that you went to?
 
I ask the question because even if you hate fast food, there was probably one time or another that you ate at a McDonald’s restaurant.
 
They are so ubiquitous all over our country and overseas that you probably ate at at least one in your life.
 
I believe the first one I ate at was when I was a young teenager, probably around 1972 or so.
 
We had moved to Long Island just a few months earlier, and a whole bunch of my friends and I got together in our old neighborhood one weekend.
 
My friend’s older brother—the friend I mentioned above who is celebrating a birthday today—drove us to a McDonald’s right near my old neighborhood in Queens, New York, and we ordered a batch of hamburgers and cheeseburgers.
 
I remember that my friend’s brother explained that McDonald’s had developed a cheese to put on the hamburger that would instantly melt once touching the hamburger’s hot surface, and thus, there was no wait for a cheeseburger.
 
I had already eaten at a Wetson’s years earlier—another old fast-food burger chain that specialized in the “Hoagie”—but I had never eaten at a McDonald’s prior to going there with my friends and my friend’s older brother.
 
I probably went to McDonald’s after that one time in about 1972—they started to pop up all over Long Island by that time--but I honestly don’t clearly remember another time that I went to the fast-food restaurant until 1975.
 
In 1975, a couple of friends and I drove down to Miami Beach, Florida, during Spring Break, which was the first time I had ever been out of New York in my entire life.
 
When we finally got to Miami, there was a McDonald’s somewhere off of the main drag, Collins Avenue, and we ate there.
 
It was a real old-looking McDonald’s, where the “Golden Arches” were on each side of the place, which was more a takeout site with tables and chairs outside than a real restaurant that you could dine inside of.
 
And I remember the menu, because we went there for not only lunch and/or dinner, but also for breakfast, so we could save a few dollars after we had thought that we would have coconuts all day, but found the coconut allotment pretty barren in Miami Beach when we were down there.
 
Anyway, I remember that with the other offerings, one of the breakfast items was called a “Ham-O,” and it was the first version of the iconic Egg McMuffin, another game-changing fast food item that revolutionized fast-food breakfast.
 
Many years later, my daughter loved McDonald’s, so each and every weekend that I saw her after my divorce, I would take her to McDonald’s from one point of Long Island to the other, literally from western Nassau County in Valley Stream to Eastern Suffolk County in the Hamptons.
 
I would try to pick a new McDonald’s each weekend for us to eat at, and I know that at least one time we ended up in Eastern Queens, and found a McDonald’s there.
 
She loved cheeseburgers and fries, and I remember that for a short period, she somehow became allergic to the cheese they used, or couldn’t eat it for some reason.
 
That did not stop us.
 
I bought cheese that I was told she could eat, and we simply ordered hamburgers and put our own cheese on the burgers.
 
Now in her early 30s, my daughter wouldn’t eat in a McDonald’s if it was the only food on the planet, as she generally does not eat red meat, and hasn’t for years.
 
I guess things do change.
 
My son has been a Burger King fan since he was little, and although he will eat McDonald’s, I know that his favorite is Burger King … but not for the burgers, as he generally doesn’t eat them. He loves their chicken nuggets, and that is what he goes for.
 
My wife generally doesn’t eat fast food at all, and if she has to have it, she has a salad.
 
Me, I go with the flow. I will eat McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, really anything, but it has to be a hamburger. No KFC for me.
 
So there you have it.
 
April 15 is more than the former tax day for us, and once again I want to wish my friend and my nephew a happy birthday.
 
Maybe we can go out to a local McDonald’s to celebrate?
 
I mean, we deserve a break today, don’t we?