By Frosty Wooldridge
Exclusive to Rense
2-8-26

Back in 1957, my mother piled four kids into our 1953 Chevy station wagon for a trip from Chicago to San Diego. She planned to meet her husband, our U.S. Marine dad stationed in San Diego. Of course, we hooked up with Route 66 for a torturous journey across America. For 2,400 miles, we stopped at gas stations, motels and restaurants that became legendary along Route 66. Many still exist today.

If you remember, two guys, George Maharis and Martin Milner drove a hot Corvette across the USA on Route 66. They got into all sorts of trouble that enthralled viewer audiences across America. Glen Frey with the Eagles wrote and sang a song, “Take it easy” with a young man, “Standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona…such a fine site to see…a girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me…take it easy...you may lose and you may win, but you’ll never be here again…”

At one location, near Grants, New Mexico, on Route 66, we stopped for burgers, fries and milkshakes. When I stepped up to the window, a smiling guy with black hair and brown eyes gave me a burger, “Tell me how it tastes.” But when I grabbed it, the burger squeaked. It was a rubber imitation. When my brother Rex grabbed his hot dog, a mustard-colored string shot out of the end of it. The man made a few gestures and comments that made us laugh. Funny, funny man! He caused my mom to roar with laughter at the fake food he gave us. Quickly, he shoved the real burgers toward us to eat.

Forty years later, I pedaled my bicycle coast-to-coast along much of Route 66. Unwittingly, my cycling mate Denis LeMay and I stopped at a burger joint near Grants, New Mexico. As we pedaled up to the burger place, we noticed a lot of pictures in the windows of movie stars standing next to a short man with black hair presenting them with burgers and shakes. I’m talking John Wayne, Carry Grant, Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, Clint Eastwood, Lucille Ball and many more.

Unwittingly, I ordered burger, fries and a milk shake. Out the blue, a short, old man, with gray hair shoved a burger toward me. “Tell me how it tastes,” he said.

“Oh my God,” I said in astonishment. “You don’t remember me, but I remember you from 1957. You gave me a rubber squeaking burger and a rubber hot dog to my brothers that shot mustard-colored string out the end. You made my mom laugh so hard, she talked about you for weeks.”

“It’s been a fun life,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of friends.”

“No kidding,” I said as I looked closer to all the movie stars, senators and several presidents standing next to him in those photographs. “You’re shaking hands with Clint Eastwood,” I said, gazing at the picture.

In this life, on that bicycle tour, that moment sticks with me: humor works its magic through every human being on this planet. Bless the ones who make us laugh: Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Goldie Hawn and that one little man in an ice cream shop in Grants, New Mexico who made my trip on Route 66 memorable. And, a lifetime later, he keeps people laughing on Route 66.

Frosty Wooldridge, on tour, Route 66. www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com

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-- Frosty Wooldridge
Golden, CO
Population-Immigration-Environmental specialist: speaker at colleges, civic clubs, high schools and conferences
Facebook: Frosty Wooldridge
Facebook Adventure Page: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World
Www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com
Www.frostywooldridge.com
Six continent world bicycle traveler
Speaker/writer/adventurer
Adventure book: How to Live a Life of Adventure: The Art of Exploring the World
Frosty Wooldridge, six continent world bicycle traveler, Astoria, Oregon to Bar Harbor, Maine, 4,100 miles, 13 states, Canada, summer 2017, 100,000 feet of climbing: