Hot dogs.
Quick and easy, they're a food that you can either throw on the grill or roast over an open fire. They're tasty with or without a bun, and they tempt even the most sophisticated palate when covered with ketchup, mustard and relish. (And chili dogs? Please don't get me started. Yum with a capital "Y".)
Regardless of how they're served, these crowd-pleasures are most often doled out during sporting events, gobbled up during summer picnics, and devoured while hunkered down next to an open campfire. For most people, they invoke delicious thoughts of baseball games, carnivals, the outdoors, summer...
And me? When I think of hot dogs, I think of... Snow. Below freezing temps. My dad's red pick-up truck. Presents and wrapping paper. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And Christmas Eve.
I don't remember exactly how the tradition got started. My mom used to joke that it was because my dad always waited until the last minute to do his holiday shopping. My dad, on the other hand, swore up and down that he wasn't a procrastinator, but merely wanted to give my mom some peace and quiet so she could wrap presents, bake, and get the house ready for the following day's festivities.
Whatever the reason, from the time I was old enough to walk until the year he passed away, my dad and I would devote the entire day before Christmas to shopping and eating. Sometime around nine o'clock in the morning, we'd climb into his old Chevy, drive it all the way downtown, fight for a parking space, traipse through the crowded stores, spend several hours searching for a suitable gift for Mom, purchase said gift, wait in line to have it wrapped, push our way back out of the store and, after breathing a sigh of relief, sink into a booth at the Milwaukee Weiner House.
Back in Sioux City, Iowa, where I grew up, the Milwaukee Weiner House was the place to get a hot dog. Sure, the mall had places like Coney Island and other here-today-gone-tomorrow hot dog stands that were always busy, and the local softball complexes and football stadiums sold franks like they were going out of style. Even the two Dairy Queens in town sold as many footlongs as they did sundaes and Blizzards.
But the Milwaukee Weiner House was different.
The shoebox-sized restaurant wasn't fancy. There was nothing special about the decor. They didn't temp adults with "buy one get one free" coupons, nor did they lure impressionable children with happy meals and plastic toys made in China. None of that gimmicky stuff.
But what they did have was... good hot dogs. And pop in glass bottles. (As a kid, you focus on the important things. And pop in a glass bottle is a huge deal to a six year old, let me tell you.)
Milwaukee Weiner was a family run business, and while the employees were nice, they weren't special. No outrageous uniforms or wacky pieces of flair interfered with the ambiance. Just a friendly smile here, a courteous head nod there. The atmosphere was cozy and warm, and during the holidays, various renditions of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" played over and over and over again in the background.
As good as Milwaukee Weiner was, we (my dad and I) didn't frequent the establishment much throughout the year. It was almost like an unspoken agreement between us. Like we each recognized that to eat there too much would take the magic out of it. The glass soda pop bottles would lose some of their appeal. The hot dogs would lose some of their zest.
I haven't been back to Milwaukee Weiner in close to ten years now. But every time I think of that little hot dog shop, I remember. The smell. The music. The holiday crowds and festive atmosphere. That tradition ended when I was fourteen, but to this very day when I eat a hot dog, from the moment I take that first bite, all I'm able to think about is Christmas Eve... and my dad.
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"What an enormous magnifier is tradition! How a thing grows in the human memory and in the human imagination, when love, worship, and all that lies in the human heart, is there to encourage it."
-- Thomas Carlyle
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