It Was Our Cultural Learning Center

The tables were 1950’s metal. The seats were red and white vinyl. We preferred one of the booths in the far back corner. The music bounced between country and rock ‘n’ roll. The milkshakes, cheeseburgers, and fries were delicious. But they were mostly window dressing….

We came to Frank’s Dairy Bar to hang out. To see. And to be seen!

We started coming before we were old enough to drive. You’d catch a ride with an older brother, or a friend, or as a last resort, a parent could drop you off—if they would do it quickly and not linger to see you safely through the front glass door.

Sometimes none of us had the money for a full meal. We’d buy a chocolate shake and nurse it for all it was worth. The talk in the early days was about school, teachers we liked, and didn’t like, what movie was playing at the Park Theatre, how our parents didn’t understand us, and what it would be like to have a driver’s license.

We did not discuss the car we would get when we turned sixteen. Ever! It just wasn’t a possibility. Most folks just barely had one “family” vehicle. We’d had a better chance of landing a man on the moon before me and Buddy, Ricky or Yogi got a car of our own!

And surprisingly enough, in those early days, we didn’t talk about girls. I was beginning to notice them, for sure. But I was way too embarrassed to bring up the subject. So, we talked about school and which student had the skinniest legs, the most lopsided grin, or the meanest scowl.

And we’d sneak a peek at the older kids dropping nickels in the jukebox and marvel at how grown up and adjusted they looked. “Cool” was the word we used long before Fonzie came along.

That booth became a comfortable place.

We shared our early dreams there, which mostly consisted of passing English, surviving football practice, and raising enough money to buy a pair of Levi jeans. Our future was mostly the “here and now.”

We’d pool our money for another shake, tell “knock-knock” jokes, make fun of Pamela’s butterfly hair clasp, and wonder if Memphis really had buildings taller than trees. We were enjoying each other’s company long before we realized we were enjoying each other’s company.

Our junior high days melted seamlessly into our freshman and sophomore years. Now, that Statler Brothers’ song about how “Life gets complicated when you get past sixteen” hadn’t been invented yet, but we began to feel the effects of it.

And we realized all those “cool” older guys that so impressed us when we first started “coming out to Frank’s” might have been paddling a little harder under the surface than we ever imagined. Girls took the place of “knock-knock” jokes and how our parents didn’t understand us.

We had known every girl in town all of our lives. I didn’t understand this “new” awkward stage. They had been sitting “off and on” with us in this same booth for years, but somehow it was a little different now.

But it didn’t seem to bother the girls….

They would laugh, share their French fries, make fun of themselves, be brutally honest with you and, if the situation demanded, they could get dead-level serious about the ups and downs of teenage life.

It wasn’t about dating or finding the perfect girlfriend. It was realizing how “regular” they were. And how much fun they could be. And they, like Yogi, Ricky, Buddy, and the rest, were going to be lifelong friends, regardless of who ended up dating whom.

’Course, we didn’t do much philosophizing from that back booth. Suzie would regale everybody with how I threw up on Miss Belle right in the middle of the Blue Bird reading class. (I sure got tired of that story!) Charlotte would recount in great detail my flying dismount off her half-wild horse during a barrel race. (I still have the scar above my right eye.)

We talked of Miss Katie’s kindergarten class; we laughed about doing all those atomic bomb drills in elementary school; we commiserated with whichever one of us had recently lost a “girlfriend” or “boyfriend;” and we sat even closer together as our senior year moved into February….

We vowed to always remain close.

Graduation came and we scattered in a dozen different directions. Some I’ve seen at various class reunions. Some I haven’t seen since we shared our last milkshake in those vinyl seats. A few still stay in touch. Some have gone on to glory.

But I can double-dog guarantee you, not a day goes by in my little world that I don’t think, see, hear, and remember each of those special friends sitting around that table. Frank’s Dairy Bar had that kind of lasting effect….

Respectfully,
Kes