Found My Childhood Out Of The Corner Of My Eye

On really special Saturdays, starting when I was six years old, my mother would drop me off at the Fireweed Theaters with $1.25, just enough for a movie, popcorn and souvenir soda (when souvenir sodas were made of real glass). If I was REALLY lucky we’d stop at Benny’s Food Wagon for lunch on the way.

Today I was running errands, the empty lots on Benson and Northern Lights where Benny’s used to sit long ago fully developed. I was smiling to myself remembering all the good times we had in that area, weekends spent cruising the strip in high school, meeting the great mogul skier Wayne Wong at Gary King’s Sporting Goods, the record store where I bought Phil Collins first album…when out of the corner of my eye I caught something familiar…couldn’t be. I circled around the block to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.

I’ll be damned. There it was. Benny’s Food Wagon!

Now keep in mind that I started going here 48 years ago, so by my estimations the only thing holding this wagon together is layer upon layer of paint and a solid snow storm might crush the thing, but there it was.

Much of my journey is about moving forward, exploring knew things, learning more about myself. But much of my journey is also about connecting with my past, with that little boy that loved Hardy Boys books and watching Pete the Dragon and Pippi Longstocking at the Fireweed Theater over and over again because they never kicked you out of the theater between showings. Nothing connected me back to that little boy more than the sight of Benny’s Food Wagon that day.

Mom and I were driving around a few days later when I decided to surprise her. Imagine the look on her face. She’d thought they were long gone, too. We both ordered our usual and I’m sure the burns on my tongue from the fried burritos were third degree as normal. It was just like old times…well almost. This time I was driving.