Grassroots Motorsports

Down a Greasy Memory Lane Jun 27, 2006

I’m not shy about my fondness for fried food, and fried chicken in particular, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that when J.G. told me a new chicken joint had opened in Daytona, I made immediate plans to go get some of its through-the-window goodness.

I had my own special reasons for wanting to visit this particular house of fry: It’s a Maryland Fried Chicken, the very same little chain where I saw my first employment, in high school. So I loaded my kids in the car and headed down US1 today at lunchtime in anticipation of a treat and a little nostalgia.

The kids asked me, as I pulled into the drive-through, if I planned to announce that I used to work at a Maryland Fried Chicken. “Of course not,” I answered, “that would be kind of dorky: ‘Hi, I used to do your job 30 years ago!’”

I’d been at the window less than a minute before I did just that. But hey, the lady at the register did lean out and ask me if I’d ever had MFC, and even offered me a menu—what’d you expect me to do? I probably didn’t have to go into detail about how yellow our polyester uniforms were “back in the day” and start reminiscing about the cute cartoon chickens that were on the boxes we had to fold, but I did. Okay, so I’m a dork. (By the way, you can see both the chickens and the exact shade of yellow here at this ad I found for a MFC in Tampa.)

This lady gave me that wide-side-glance nod that means they think you’re crazy and ducked back into the window (rather quickly, it seemed) and I had another minute or so to feel truly idiotic before the window popped open again, not with my food, but with another lady who asked me where I had worked, and for whom. Long story short (or not so short), this second lady was married to the great-grandson of the guy I worked for, and the chain is still in the same family.

She called over her husband and we talked a bit about Mr. Albert, my former employer and his great grandfather, and they seemed genuinely interested to hear how he used to take us all out on Friday nights, after the store closed, for a late dinner at Sambo’s restaurant (really). “Order anything you want, girls,” he used to say as he lit a cigarette and leaned back expansively on the big vinyl booth, “it’s on me.” Mr. Albert used to pay us well below minimum wage, but he also gave us all sound advice using examples from his long and colorful life, and presented each of us with little gold bracelets for high school graduation as well as a little going-away-to-college bonus. He generally treated all of us somewhere between indentured servants and fondly regarded children, which was probably the right note to strike with his young employees. He was well into his 60s when I worked for him, so I was not surprised to hear he was long dead. For a moment, though, he flared back to life as we talked about him.

Then a fragrant bag of steaming chicken was handed to me with waves and goodbyes, and I turned toward home feeling quite satisfied and full of anticipation for the meal to come. Until Tommy broke the silence with an eye-rolling “I can’t believe you just did that.”

I gave him some chicken anyway. And yes, it was as good as I remember.

View all updates

No one has posted any comments yet. Perhaps you'd like to be the first?