I remember Drakes Drive-In located on 39th and Twin City. I liked visiting this drive-in just about every Friday night and sometimes on Saturday night as well. Around 8:00pm, the Bergeron Brothers (Ted and Dan), Greg Plassette, and I (sometimes others would join us), would stop by for a bite to eat. The Chicken Fried steak burger was really nice and juicy. I would always order one.
There was a little old lady working there as the car-hop. She usually waited on us just about every visit. We eventually got to know her fairly well, except for her name. One night we agreed that she needed a nick-name and all decided to call her "Toots". Oh man, she was so excited to hear that she now had a nick-name. In fact, she was in tears. She said, "This is the first time in my life that anyone has cared enough to give me a nick-name." She mentioned that while growing up, most all of her friends had nick-names but her. We continued visiting her at the drive-in for several months and as you can see, at this point, we obviously had no life. One night, one of the guys had a idea, why don't we give Toots a present. She's such a nice lady." Everyone agreed, but what? Someone spoke up and said, "How about flowers?" We all though the flower idea was good, but where do you get flowers at this time of night. There was no such thing as a Wal-Mart, BUT, there was the Green Lawn Cemetery across from the drive-in. I, of course immediately spoke up staying, "This is not a good idea, let's forget the flowers." As we passed each grave site, we finally spotted a colorful pot of artificial flowers. The door opened and I'm aggressively pushed out of the car. "Go get those flowers sitting on the grave to the left." Feeling really stupid, I walked over and grabbed the pot. It was pretty dirty. We tried cleaning it as well as we could and then high-tailed it over to Drakes. It was about 8:30 and since Greg was in the drivers seat, he was elected to present the flowers. Well, Toots couldn't believe they were for her. She was so excited; she really thought she was someone special. She couldn't wait to show the other girls, so she ran back to the building. Of course, we were watching with great concern to see if there would be any unusual reactions from the other ladies. Sure enough, the smiles turned to mean looks and all at once those looks turned straight to us. Toots is now on her way back out to the car. There was no question she was p ...-off. "Roll that damn window down!" Greg refused. "You boys think I'm pretty stupid. Well, I know where you got those flowers! You could have a least removed the Rest In Peace ribbon from the pot!" We all looked at each other and thought, "Boy what a bunch of dumb a..." Toots wasn't through yet. "Get your a... off the property and never come back here again." I, at that point, again reminded everyone, "See, I told you guys this wasn't a good idea, but nooo, you wouldn't listen." I sure had been looking forward to one of those steak burgers. But, to this day, I have never eaten another one!
Damn, that Rest In Peace ribbon.
