When I was little we would travel to Salt Lake and Provo a few times a month. Less in the winter of course, but still it seemed like quite a few times. I didn't really love sharing the back seat with my brothers and sisters, but the worst was sitting in the very back seat in the station wagon.
The one thing I remember the most about our trips to the south is wanting to stop at Maddox on our way home. How can you not love driving your car up to a drive-in with a tramway with clear boxes going around and around with food in them. Taking the food from the kitchen out to the cars. Taking the garbage back into the kitchen. Girls calling your order into the kitchen on cool walkie talkie gismos. 994 994 Cheeseburger and fries and an orange soda. (That is what I would order everytime.) I would try to figure out the lingo they would use, it was a secret code to me. Not until much later did I figure out it was the position of our car for our order.
I took it upon myself to get dad to take us to Maddox. So I decided at about the turn off onto the old highway 89 I would start prepping my dad to stop. I would start with "I'm thirsty". I would wait a few minutes, then again "I'm thirsty". It was probably only 15 or 20 minutes that I would torture the car with my whining, but we would get to Perry, pass that big twirling red sign and drive right on past.
The worst part is dad would stop in front of a car dealership in Brigham City with a drinking fountain out front and let us all out to get a drink. I am sure my dad thought he was being quite helpful finding a place for me to get a drink. Of course I couldn't just sit in the car and not get a drink. I was the one who had whined for 20 minutes that I was thirsty. Did he not notice that the whining had quit when we had missed my target?
It took me quite a few failed trips to the water fountain before I figured out my problem. I decided I would just ask dad if we could stop at Maddox on the way home. Wow. What an amazing realization. If I want something, just ask for it. Dad did not stop every time we went through, but at least we did sometimes. When we didn't stop I knew ahead of time and didn't have to have false hope or wonder.
The best part of this memory is that poor drinking fountain. I still drive by it on main street in Brigham and laugh my way right on past to Maddox. 994, 994 Cheeseburger with fries and an orange soda.
