The Couscous Chronicles

I know now what’s been missing in my life for the past thirty years.  You know that itch you could never satisfy.  I found it heading east on Interstate 70 near New Castle, IN off of an exit dubbed “Wilbur Wright Rd” in a rusting hulk of a sign bearing the word “Nickerson”.This sign represents an incompleteness that not much unlike my itch is one of many obsolete road food establishments living on in my cluttered brain chasm.Growing up my family traveled all over the Midwest and South by car.  In my mind it was the “golden” era of travel during the early nineteen seventies as it coincided with the dawn of the interstate highway system.  I still remember the detours through the farmland of central Illinois along side mammoth tangles of yellow “caterpillar” earth moving machinery building the youngling Interstate 57 and the back road detour along piney wood bordered two lane higway through Grenada, Mississippi paralleling the soon to be born Interstate 55.  Most of all I remember the new crop of road side food establishments designed especially to take advantage of luring traffic off of the busy interstate highway interchanges.One in particular stood out because my father wisely avoided it knowing any stop there would be the detour to hell with my mother sucking up precious road time in an unending search for the latest Indian souvenirs and odd flavored peanut brittles.  Of course my father would occasionally misjudged a tree shrouded exit (predating today’s Jedi mind trick blue commercial interstate signs representing the businesses off each exit with their logos) and be forced to stop at a similar roadside gas station-diner-yellow roofed store called Stuckey’s.  The nostalgia for Stuckey’s is not as strong as “Nickerson” because Stuckey’s still exists in a sort of modernized shadow of its previous self, sort of like when Prince became “the artist formerly known as Prince” we now have dotting our interstates the “roadside establishment formerly remembered  as “Stuckey’s”.Yes Stuckey’s still sells pecan logs and even a distant cousin of the southern “praline”, but they no longer have the “grill” in the back where in antiquity they sold all the road food: greasy burgers and fries!  If you’re lucky you’ll find one with a Dairy Queen attached.Now a days I find it more interesting to scout the remnants of former Stuckey’s seeking out the distinctive pitched yellow Stuckey’s roof still haunting random exits.  In some cases they still rise out of weed choked lots like old archaeological ruins.   In other cases these sites have been resurrected into something far more interesting than the “new” Stuckey’s:  rated XXX video stores with parking lots full of tractor trailers and neon signs flashing “Adult Video”.  Now when I travel with my family I love to point out insignificant road “kill” images such as this reminiscing about what once was and barely earning a return sniff or sigh from my wife and the kids as they either sleep or bury their heads into their Harry Potter tomes and the latest J California Cooper yarn.So who is “Nickerson”?   Just like Stuckey’s, Nickerson was what I like to think of as the fore runner to today’s aesthetically current Cracker Barrel “old country store” restaurants.  If I am not mistaken the founder of “Nickerson” was actually a former employee of Stuckey’s who out of a dispute branched out his own.  More specifically “Nickerson” was Nickerson Farms.  They grew out of the construction dust of the newly born Federal Interstate Defense Highway system.  What made them stand out was each one had a trademark high pitched tudor roof (kind of reminded me of the old iHops) and on one end of the building was a swarming bee hive attached to the building.  This was no ordinary hive as it actually transcended the external side of the building inside where it reappeared within a plastic encasement behind the register counter allowing for full viewing of the honey making process. He knew all too well that old Nickerson had one upped Stuckey in chocking full his stores with even better catch all web of Indian or more appropriate to today’s standards Native American souvenirs and all manner of peanut brittle.  But of course it was not all the above that made him not want to stop, no it was the most important part of Nickerson’s spider web:  the ubiquitous bee hive.   You see he knew my mother could not leave without buying a half dozen jars of Nickerson’s infamous flavored honey!I still recall my first eye witnessing of the Nickerson Farms honey making bee hive, partly because this is what drove it to such lore but also because my father had never stopped here and I stood there mouth wide open and feet firmly planted observing the whole process of millions of honey bees in an indoor beehive knowing I would likely never see it again.  While the previous statement has held true or at least until some enterprising entrepreneur resurrects the Nickerson concept, I can at least say I have laid eyes on a vision in a dilapidated rusting “Nickerson Farms” sign validating a memory of what once was.