A Hot Dog Tail

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Lucky Dog Cart in New Orleans. Photo by Jan Kaulins
Posted by permission on www.maurynewsnet.com
Copyright 2004, Jan Kaulins www.jankaulins.com



A Hot Dog Tail
By Ron DeYoung

A little over ten years ago I went to New Orleans to visit a friend I had served with while stationed at the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in the Philippines. Staff Sergeant Jim is the same guy that told me that I’d sound better on the radio if I had my wisdom teeth pulled. He said my mouth was too full and the teeth interfered with my diction and annunciation. I, being a first-class coward when it came to dentists, told Staff Sergeant Jim where he could put his mouth.

Well less than a month later, during my physical prior to being discharged from the Navy, Staff Sergeant Jim’s astute diagnosis was confirmed by a Navy Dentist. The fact that a Marine Corps Broadcaster could identify my dental needs by the way I spoke, forced me to respect and believe what that Marine said. That’s why when I visited him in “The Big Easy” and the first thing he wanted to do was buy me a hot dog, I offered no resistance. I was hungry, too!

Gunnery Sergeant Jim (he’d been promoted, but I just called him Jim) wasn’t content with just any old Ball Park Frank. No, he insisted on getting me a “Lucky Dog!” I didn’t care how the hot dogs fortune was turning out! Lucky, unlucky or just breaking even, I wanted a hot dog!

As Jim drove to the French Quarter and parked a few blocks from Bourbon Street, my hunger grew. As we walked the stone streets, the alluring aroma of Cajun cooking permeated my senses and I began to salivate uncontrollably. By the time we reached Bourbon Street I began to feel faint and was possibly on the verge of passing out from hunger! Then right before my starving eyes appeared a peculiar vision, possibly caused by hallucinations. It was a push cart that looked a lot like…a….a…a…a hot dog! No… it was a “Lucky Dog!”

Jim was right again! That Lucky Dog was the best hot dog I had ever tasted. It was juicier than the finest corn fed beef, more succulent than the freshest Maine Lobster. For the next week that I was in New Orleans, each day included a mandatory visit to the Lucky Dog carts in The French Quarter. The day I left was a bittersweet day. I haven’t really missed the know-it-all Marine, but I surely miss the Lucky Dog.

More than ten years have passed since I had my brief, but passionate affair with the Lucky Dog and in retrospect; I realize it was the experience, not the hot dog that rocked my world. As is so often the case with matters of past passions, we human creatures can’t help but wonder, even if in secret, about the well-being of the one that got away.