Many years ago, my family was moving from a rented duplex in the city to our very own new home in the rural countryside of northeast Ohio. Actually, it wasn't new at all. It was a very old home but comfortable and sturdy. It was new to us.
The moving truck had left with our belongings for the 30-mile drive. We were all in the car ready to follow. But it was lunchtime already, and we were hungry. Plus I had a newly adopted cat named Rusty that we had smuggled in from Canada. What about him?
I happened to remember and suggest a fast-food drive-thru place on the way where I could keep Rusty in his cardboard box, but we could still get some food. And I could pass some of a burger and a few fries down to my new little buddy.
McDonald's did not exist anywhere outside California yet. And drive-thrus were relatively new at that time. So, getting food without leaving the car seemed like both a convenience and time-saver.
Drive-thru food places were such a great idea that they spread across the country like the wildfires that are smoking up the air in so many places right now. In fact, they were such a good idea that banks added drive-thru teller positions and so did dry cleaners and ice-cream stands and liquor stores.
And I recall some years ago even seeing that one funeral home that set up a drive-thru visitation window for mourners to pay their respects to their passed-away friend while just passing through themselves. One fast food drive-thru even helped reelection Donald Trump two years ago.
So, it was with some mild shock and then prolonged chuckling and head-shaking that I learned the other day that one pioneering California community in that sunny state that perfected America's car culture is launching a movement to ban drive-thru food places.
Not far from where the McDonald brothers invented McDonald's.
Click on the flag here to hear my thoughts on this step backward in our culture. Then, click on the Comments below to share your thoughts.
So, who do you think will be on the Republican presidential ticket come 2028? The Comments section below is open.
This week's Sunday column looked at the most likely top two leading Republican candidates getting all the attention now, their pluses and minuses. And don't forget the Republican governor of Florida, who's only spent the last six years turning the Sunshine State a deep shade of red politically.
And the current clown-car chaos of the Democrat Party after the colossally disastrous Joe Biden administration, his decision to run again in 2024, then Nancy Pelosi's unilateral decision to replace the senile old man with the empty-headed vice president, who spent $100 million each of 15 weeks to lose every single swing state and the White House.
Now, with the midterm election sitting there for the taking, the Democratic National Committee is $2 million in debt while the Republicans have over a hundred million in the war-chest. Money doesn't guarantee victory, but it sure makes it easier.
The most recent audio commentary examined the ongoing economic emptying of yet another blue state, the home state of Abraham Lincoln, the very first Republican president:
Illinois Is Bleeding: Oh, Look, Dems Are in Charge
Two more major companies are packing up and moving their businesses and jobs to more economically welcoming red states.
