The Taco/Hot Dog Deja Vu

Last week, on my way to Turlock to surprise Michael, I stopped at a taqueria truck in Modesto to grab a little something to eat. It was 1:00 in the afternoon, and I was famished. By that time, I hadn’t eaten since the night before, and I’d weathered an early morning flight from Denver to Sacramento—including a plane delay, a business meeting, a dead phone, and strings of phone calls and texts once the phone was resurrected.

Given the choice, once in Modesto, I will generally choose a taqueria truck as my preferred dining experience. The smells, the people, the taste of some of the best mole sauce on the planet, and the off-the-beaten-path fare such as goat meat, all draw me in like nothing else I’ve eaten in the area.

On this day, I had something of a cross-cultural déjà vu moment.

The place I stopped was just off Highway 99, and the taqueria truck was parked in the shade, under a tree. The breeze was blowing just enough to make me realize it was hot out. As I approached the truck and ordered food, the two fellows inside chatted me up in a strange mix of Spanglish that seemed to work well for all of us. As I waited for a quick order of nachos, I breathed in the smell of cilantro and salsa. My mouth was watering. I asked one of the guys on the truck for a soda.

The dos hermanos on the truck in Modesto didn’t charge me for the soda. Dressed in a skirt and heels, I don’t think that I was their standard-issue blue collar customer. They helped me with my broken Spanish, and were patient as I butchered their native tongue. They asked me where I was from, and where I was headed. When I told them I was off to see mi novio, they just smiled and nodded, one of them saying, “he’s one luuuucky muchacho!”

As he handed me the soda, I was somehow transported back about 25 or so years to Shingletown. For some reason, the whole moment at the truck in Modesto reminded me of that little hotdog stand that was across from the Shingletown Store for a while back in the 80’s. I think it was called Wheelie Weenie. The two brothers who ran it were always so nice to me. They never charged me for soda, even if it was the only thing I got from them that day. For a while, Wheelie Weenie became the place to stop and visit with whomever else was standing by at the moment. Partly because, well, once a person had checked their PO box and bought a newspaper in the store, there really wasn’t much else to do while one was out on the highway.

I think the real connection between the two moments in time was the fact that in both circumstances I was in a place where not much else mattered but the beautiful day, the good people, and a few moments unfettered by the demands of the rest of life.