Hit The Spot

As legend would have it (or as my parents tell it), when my mom and dad were a young couple they would go to Kenosha on the weekends to visit my mother's parents. Kenosha was and still is home to The Spot Drive-In, a classic burger joint...and my family loved what they were offering. So their weekend visits always included a stop at The Spot.

It was all well and good until Lent rolled around. Being good Catholics, they would have to abstain from the burgers on Friday...well almost. My dad and grandpa would stay up until the clock struck midnight, make a quick run to the drive-in, and bring back a bag full of burgers for the four of them to devour. They were that good.

Eventually my grandparents moved away, but the desire for those burgers remained. One year at Thanksgiving my grandpa was having problems swallowing his dinner. He was diagnosed with esophogial cancer and everytime he had to eat some pureed something or other he would say, "I can't wait until I'm better. The first thing I'm going to eat is a Spot hamburger." In the end, the cancer got the best of him and he never did get his last burger. Well...sort of.

My grandparents are buried in Kenosha so our family began a tradition. We meet out at the cemetary with blankets, chairs, coolers, and a bag full of Spot bugers and have a picnic on their gravesites. Some years we're large in number...sometimes small. Some years it's just those of us locally...some years we have relatives from Arizona, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. But everytime we go we enjoy talking about old times and sharing the new.

Yesterday was the first time we've gone in several years and the headstones showed our lack of attention. We sat around in a circle and ate our lunch and then the little ones played catch and hide and seek. My dad scattered some burger crumbs on my grandfather's grave and my aunt commented on how this may be the last time we do this. My aunt may be right, but I also think that as long as there is a Spot Drive-In in Kenosha, there will be picnics in the cemetary. The burgers are still that good.