Hot Dog Blog delayed

I haven’t posted to Dave in the Shack for nearly a week. I’m working on a hot dog blog and have run into a snag. I’d like to say it is due to circumstances beyond my control, but that’s not true. When you write and self publish a personal blog you control everything.

The hot dog blog I’m planning requires extensive research i.e. eating hot dogs in various places and paying attention. I’ve been doing so almost daily but one of my intended dog stands, made famous by its mere presence, the pure art of its existence, is not open. I’ve gone by repeatedly. No sign of activity. I can hardly go on without it.

I’m talking about Grumpee’s Weenie Wagon, the collection of orange sheds and vehicles on the west side of Route 71 between Route 80 and Dayton Road. It’s the classic, maybe the ultimate of local independent hot dog stands. Typically it operates in warm weather, spring to fall. I’m itching to put it up against its competitors using the criteria I’ve developed. But I can’t. There’s a problem. Although the sign says open it is closed up tight.

It was dangerously close to a crime scene. We don’t have a lot of crime in LaSalle County relatively speaking. I mean, compared to Cook County LaSalle County is practically Eden. We forget that bad things happen everywhere varying only in frequency. What allegedly happened in Grumpee’s neighborhood is pretty bad. Grisly in fact. If of course it’s true. I had a former State’s Attorney on my board of directors who reminded me to always use the adjective “allegedly” until judges or juries determine actual guilt. I’ve found it to be a healthy viewpoint, and so I do.

The alleged victim of this crime died in a pole barn north of Grumpee’s there, behind an old falling down conventional barn. The barn was definitely falling down, not allegedly. And it is officially down now, being cleaned up along with the pole barn now that the yellow crime scene tape has been removed.

The alleged victim, definitely deceased, was running a truck wash business in the pole barn in question and allegedly came into some type of conflict with the alleged perpetrators who not only allegedly killed him but tried to dispose of his body by burning it, or so the newpapers asserts. This all happened just north of Grumpee’s. I pulled through a gravel lane off Dayton Road that takes you to the legendary hot dog nirvana. A pick up truck was parked between the old recently razed barn and the pole barn. A young guy with his dog came over to my car, asking me what I wanted. He looked perturbed that I was there.

“What do you know about Grumpee’s?” I asked.

“Well we’ve had some trouble here you know.”

“Here?”

“Yes here. This shed was being rented by a man operating a truck wash…”

“That was here?” I had read the news story in the local paper.

“Right there in that shed.”

“I thought it was over on Dayton Road past the Pet Smart Warehouse closer to 23.”

“Nope. Right in there.” He pointed to the tall metal door, slide open, revealing a dark shadowy interior. A man walked out the door with boards in his hand.

“Right in there huh?”

“Yes sir. We’re cleaning up the property, including this old barn. The owners have decided to sell it.”

“I see.” His dog smelled the front wheel of my Buick and peed on it.

“How about Grumpee’s?”

I knew it sounded minor, compared to alleged murder, supposed dismemberment, and rumors of an amateurish cremation. But hey, I have a blog to write.

“Grumpee and his staff had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t think they did. I just wonder if they’re going to open this season or not.”

“It was quite a shock to them. I’d wouldn’t look for them to open for a few weeks yet.”

Them. I always thought of Grumpee’s as a business run by a single person who was not particularly happy.

“They’ve got to lay in supplies and such and I haven’t seen them around. For obvious reasons.”

“Yeah. Obviously. Sorry for your trouble here. Thanks for the information.”

The serious look on his face persisted. Being in the vicinity of an alleged murder scene will do that to you I guess. For some reason he reached through my car window and shook my hand.

“You take it easy now.”

“I will.”

He held on to my hand a little too long. After he let go I started forward but his dog was in my way.

“Don’t worry he’ll move.”

Believe you me, the last thing I wanted to do was run over that dog and add to the misery and alleged death hanging over the area.

I went down the road a hundred yards or so and turned into the Oasis. I’d promised my wife breakfast. I’d already had a hot dog at the Road Ranger across from the Oasis earlier in the week. And since Grumpee’s was closed I thought I would try to salvage something from the trip.

The Oasis once anchored that Interstate exit location. Now it’s a sad second to the Road Ranger across the road. Their gas is cheaper. Oasis is a Shell station/truck service place/restaurant. It’s seen better days. Next to Road Ranger are vacant buildings. Stuff has been torn down across the road. As it turns out Interstate exit establishments come and go, ebb and flow.

Take the Interstate exit just to the east of 71, the Marseilles exit. At one time they had a gas station and a good restaurant. The gas station is long gone and the restaurant appears to be little more than a poker machine place. The tall two pole interstate visible sign that once marked the restaurant is now blank and twisted. It went up during a nice renovation of the restaurant which later emerged as TACO TIME. Good tile floors, nice Mexican décor, OK margaritas. That was long ago it seems. What makes cars stop stopping? Better places down the road I guess.

The Oasis didn’t have a hot dog on its menu, not that I especially wanted one. Oasis biscuits and gravy always call to me when I drive past on 80. I don’t think I’ve been in the Oasis for ten years. It has changed little, just more empty. Still open 24/7, clean, roomy, good waitresses, weak bad truck stop coffee, heavy cups. I had a half order of biscuits and gravy, two eggs sunny side up on top, and a glass of milk in addition to coffee. My wife had the Popeye omelet.

The Popeye omelet is a good way to illustrate the character of the Oasis restaurant. Most joints serving a vegetarian omelet with spinach work “Florentine” into that menu item evoking the fancy Italian mystique of Florence. Not the Oasis. They go for the old sailor cartoon. Popeye in trouble, pipe in his mouth, struggling to get the spinach can out of his pocket. When he does, opening it creatively and slugging it down, he’s rejuvenated and ready to beat the hell out of Brutus or whoever is the villain du jour. The Oasis wouldn’t serve some snooty damn Italian Florentine omelet. For them it’s the Popeye.

I didn’t have to remind my waitress to bring the milk although I often must to others. Told you they were good waitresses at the Oasis. The biscuits and gravy were as delicious as I remember, nice chunks of sausage buried in thick white gravy, all made better by the soft sunny side eggs. Break the yolks and they run into the gravy, making it all the sweeter. That’s the way I used to have them in the 80’s when I lived for a short time in Wedron. The Oasis was an anytime and often stop. Cheap gas, cheap food, always a lot of activity. Times have changed. But The Oasis, though its glory is faded, goes on.

I perused the trucker section of the Oasis, which is on the other side of the bathrooms and completely separate from the restaurant. They have a service desk just for truckers, and shelves full of trucker gear for sale. It’s all scaled down from the past. I checked the food section. There on the smallest roller grill I’ve seen so far was one greasy glistening hot dog turning slowly between the hot steel rods. Next to it was a single taquito. Trust me, you don’t want the last and only hot dog on the roller grill. I passed. The Oasis will not be part of my hot dog blog.

My wife drove home. Having been once again denied the Grumpee’s Weenie Wagon experience my hot dog blog remains incomplete. Tone’s Dog House, Mr. J’s, Triple J Ice Cream, Thornton’s, Red Dog Grill, Road Ranger, and Marathon have all been sampled and rated by a carefully thought out set of criteria. But Grumpee’s, the potential king, the piece de resistance, remains out of reach. So it goes.

What a difference a couple of years make. Prior to retirement I wrote each week on social issues and heartfelt emotions surrounding the lives of real people. And now I flippantly throw all that aside for hot dogs. I guess I’m fitting in to mainstream America again. Yet a man died, allegedly murdered, on the outskirts of Ottawa.

Robert Dowd, 47 rented the building I drove past this week and began a business called Rob’s Wash Outs. On April 14th two acquaintances, Jonathan Beckman 21 (who also worked at the Oasis) and William Horman, 48 allegedly had an argument with Dowd following Dowd’s refusal to make Horman a partner in Rob’s Wash Outs. They allegedly killed him there at the truck wash, took Dowd’s body to his trailer on the west side of the Fox River in Dayton, and stayed for a day or more allegedly burning Dowd’s body on a burn pile near his home. They are reported to have used buckets to carry ashes from the burn pile to the Fox where they dumped Dowd’s remains into the river. If convicted of murder, Beckman and Horman will mark the first LaSalle County murder convictions since May 2011. They appear separately before Judges Ryan and Raccuglia on May 7th and 8th.

Serious stuff, all taking place three miles from my house and a pitching wedge away from the counter in the orange shack where I hope to soon order a hot dog at Grumpee’s Weenie Wagon. And what do I plan to write about after I have that hot dog? Interpersonal violence? Senseless death? No.

Hot dogs. I’m going to write about hot dogs. What’s happening here?