MEACHAM LANE MEMOIRS/Eddie's Lunch

Meacham Lane Memoirs/Eddie’s Lunch

Moon Pies, RC Colas, Pin Ball Machines and Ten Cent Chili Dogs

As I advanced into my pre-teen and early teen years, I succumbed to the lure of our hang-out at Eddie’s Lunch.  It was every bit as important to my leisure time as Bob’s Dairy Queen was to my junior and senior high school years, or Bob’s and Noble Park Dairy Queen in my Junior College years.

The diner was owned and operated by Eddie Box, his mother and grandmother.  The white boarded building was located across from the site of the original Farley Elementary School on Old Benton Road next to Keel’s Grocery store. Usually Sonny and Gary Vaughn and myself made the mile walk each way, quarters jingling in faded blue jean pockets. Sometimes we would be accompanied by Donnie Wyatt, Randy Paris, or some other neighborhood friend....and met others once we got there.

Keel’s Grocery was an important outlet for my mother and dad when we relocated from Lone Oak to our Meacham Lane home.  It’s uniqueness was a service no longer in vogue or practice.  Our groceries were carried “on account”, or “on tab”.  This was on a honor system, and it was symbolic of a practice in time that has faded from Americana and it’s small towns. Once a month at dad's payday, he would drive mother to the grocery to settle the account. But, Keel’s Grocery is another subject altogether.

As you walked in the door of Eddie’s, you were greeted with a horseshoe shaped counter, concrete floor, and dim lighting.  This wasn’t the dim lighting associated with the creation of dining atmosphere, it was poor and insufficient lighting that was was critical to the low overhead needed for the Box family to make ends meet.  In the early days, the back wall had candy bins where an assortment of sweets could be had for 2 for a penny, and a penny each. Mary Janes, candy dots on thin ribbons of waxed paper, candy cigarettes, tootsie rolls, Peanut Butter Logs, jaw breakers, Bit o’ Honeys, and other goodies made a nickel go a long way, almost always resulting in a sugar burst of energy that faded to a hazy fog by the time the second period class rolled around across the road at Farley.  In later years, the candy bins gave way to extra pin ball machines.

The menu was pretty simple.  For a dime you could have your choice of a hamburger or a hot dog with spaghetti in a chili base.  The hot dog was actually half a hot dog, split and griddled, then cut in half and placed on a round bun with the chili/spaghetti concoction and grilled on the flattop.  The little sandwiches were delicious.

Sodas were a nickel, and moon pies, Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies, and peanuts were a nickel.  For a quarter, You could get two sandwiches and a soda, or a sandwich, soda (usually an RC cola), peanuts, and a moon pie.  For those not privy to the practices of the time, the peanuts went into the RC cola.  If you came to the place in the dog days of summer with 50 cents in your pocket, you could have lunch, and since pinball was a nickel, have enough change to rack up sufficient games to last all afternoon. My pal, Sonny Vaughn and I spent about a million hours in the place.  Maybe a billion. And we owned the pin ball machines. They feared us.

My freshman year of high school resulted ultimately in our rental of a small gray house around the corner from Meacham Lane, on Estes Lane.  A school bus would pick us up early in the morning in front of the house, and drop us off at Keel’s Grocery to await a second bus to Reidland High school.  It seemed like Divine providence.  We unloaded from the first bus and dived into Eddie’s to rack up games on the pin ball machines.  The second bus always arrived at the most inopportune times, with  free games racked up in queue.

Eddie’s Lunch is long gone.  Only those of my generation remember the friendships nurtured there, the hot dogs and hamburgers consumed by the hundreds over the years, the RC colas and moon pies,  the tilts of the pin ball machines during our aggressive and enthusiastic maneuvers, and the Box family.  But, I sure do.  It was an important place in a simple time and there is joy in the memory of the place, of the time spent there with boyhood companions, all dressed alike in white t-shirts, blue jeans, and white high-top tennis shoes.  Other than the gleeful faces  all hunched over the pinball machines the only thing than differentiated the gang was the placement and size of the patches on their faded blue jeans.

I drive by the site of the old hang-out several times a month.  The skeletal remains of Keel’s Grocery still stands close by.  But, when I pass something tugs at my heart.  And I yearn for those times, the laughter, the pals, the promise of life’s adventures and discoveries.  It was so simple of a time and place. But, it is etched into my memory as long as God allows consciousness and clarity.