I enrolled in college at seventeen. Nowadays I suppose my high school guidance counselor would have steered me into a "year of discovery" or some such nonsense, so that I would be the same age as the other freshmen, but I recall my parents rather urgently wanted me to enter higher education as they were concerned I would "waste" my life by becoming a well-paid, useful auto mechanic. They also wanted me out of the house, naturally.
So, off I went to a school in western Pennsylvania that primarily catered to rich, dumb kids from small towns. No offense to any one them, and I'm sure most of them would agree with that assessment, but that was, and I believe still is, the prime feature of the school's business plan.
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However, they still needed a small contingent of poor, smart kids if for no other reason than to lift the student body's average SAT score and stay accredited, so there I was. It helped that I qualified for a wrestling scholarship [$600 over four years] and that I was from out-of-state. Otherwise, college was a round hole and I a square peg.
So, as I'd never been to Aruba on my family's yacht nor boasted a state-of-the-art Pioneer sound system in my dorm room, I found that I had little in common with most of my classmates and for much of my first semester was content with my own company. If you think that sounds sad, au contraire.
Having grown up in a city, I really enjoyed the rural nature of the college's small town and the easy manner of the locals. On days when my class schedule was light I would always enjoy a meandering ramble into town to see the sights, such as they were. For me, they were considerable.
There was a store that sold fishing gear, bait ["I'd like some medium-sized fatheads, please"] sturdy hunting clothes and walking boots for under five dollars, a diner that served an actual, honest-to-gosh "blue plate special" that was filling and tasty for $2.25, a news agency that carried every conceivable magazine and many out-of-town newspapers in which I would browse, and next door what became my favorite place to read whatever periodical I had purchased, The Majestic Grille.
It was not a very prepossessing place. I always thought it looked like a crazy uncle's basement as it was filled with, I think "kitsch" is the artistic term, that seemed to have no unifying theme. There were old, really esoteric posters for things like circus freak shows and defunct auto manufacturers, a non-functional arcade game or two, and a variety of stuffed animal heads on the walls.
Behind the serving counter were two ancient, and I suppose not particularly clean, heated urns filled with some great smelling, if foul appearing, sauce that tantalized the unwary. The sauce was the chief feature of the Magi Dog, the two-for-50 cent chili-drowned hot dog that was The Majestic Grille's only fare. Now, that was a simple, satisfying, and affordable menu.
After not too long, I found a community of like-minded classmates who became my life-long friends and I spent less time meandering. But, on those occasions when all of us were on Main Street, The Majestic and its Magi Dogs were always a highlight of the trip.
I would graduate and my life would go through its changes and moves, as it does with everyone, and I wasn't back to that small town for a couple of decades. When I was traveling through the state, I became caught up in a massive inch-by-inch traffic jam on Interstate 80 and, after crawling to an exit, managed to travel north on one of the old rural routes to cut through that venerable small town. The clothing and bait store was gone, replaced by a fabric store; the diner was still there, although now it called itself a steak house and there were no more blue plate specials; the news agency was gone and replaced by some over-priced coffee house.
In curiosity, and not really expecting it to still be there, I found myself at the mostly unchanged Majestic, once again enjoying a Magi Dog. In the intervening years, it had become a legitimate restaurant with a 4.5 out of five online rating from customers. The Magi Dog was now $1.85, still a good price, and still looked foul but tasted great. Also, those dodgy urns were gone.
Along the one wall were testimonials to The Majestic that were written by movie stars, politicians, writers for various periodicals, all supporting the idea that this strange little spot where I sought refuge decades before had become one of those "hidden gems" that fuel most of the online travel sites. A notoriously acerbic TV commentator had discovered the place, too, and had featured it on her web page and The Travel Channel had listed it as one of the best places to find a hot dog. Remarkable.
Sitting at the counter, I noticed the young man next to me, intent on some esoterica on his phone, wearing a knit hat with the name of my college on it. I asked about it, discovered that he was indeed a student there, shared some ancient observations that bored him, frankly, and before I let him return to his Spaceypage or whatever, asked him if the Majestic was still popular with the other students.
"Only for their free WiFi. Vegans don't eat hot dogs."
Of course.
More information, should you find yourself tooling through western Pennsylvania and desire either a Magi Dog or free WiFi, may be found here.