When I was in grade school, my family sometimes would eat at the Hamburger King in Ada.
Usually, it would be late in the evening, past the time when Mom would feel like cooking supper at home.
My standard order was a hamburger basket, which actually came in a little red plastic basket.
My mother would cut my burger in half because she knew that was all I could eat. Dad ate the other half.
Then, as now, I ate all my potatoes by myself.
I liked it when we sat at one of the booths along the east wall, because they had juke boxes mounted on the wall at each booth.
You could flip through the songs on the juke box and even drop a coin to play your selection.
I don’t recall specifically that I ever got to play a song, but I recall the juke box being in use almost every time we were there, often playing “Don’t WorryAbout Me” by Marty Robbins.
Maybe one of the waitresses liked the fuzz guitar on that song and would drop the house quarters to keep it going.
Since it was Ada in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, country music and rockabilly dominated the plays.
After I got out of the service and was back around Ada for college and to work at the newspaper, I had many more meals at the Hamburger King and ate the entire burger myself.
I don’t know that I recognized the cultural significance at the time, but the juke box was gone by then.
Sometime between Marty Robbins and Ricky Skaggs, an era had ended.
I realized that the other day and began to wonder: When was the last time I saw or heard a juke box in action.
The last time specifically was in 1975 in the Philippines.
A couple of nights a week, I would go to a restaurant in Angeles City for lumpia and shrimp-fried rice. They had a juke that covered every musical taste, from Charley Pride to rock to soul and several other stops.
Just as Marty Robbins had dominated play at the Hamburger King, a song called “Rock The Boat” dominated play at the restaurant.
Google tells me that it was recorded by the Hues Corporation.
I remember I hated the song then.
Nowadays, I might drop a quarter for it just for the old-time thrill of playing a juke box.