Tag: Springfield

“Thoughtless Driving”

One of the inconveniences of living in a small town is the proximity to airports. In western South Carolina we actually have a choice of six, including tiny Augusta Regional just beyond the nearby Savannah River. But whether Augusta or one of the larger airports hours away on the East Coast, the drive to get there is mostly two-lane blacktop, speeding along and then slowing down through the small towns along the way. Correction. You’re supposed to slow down through the small towns.

Blame it on puzzle apps. My wife and I were just thirty miles into our eastward trek to Charleston International when we hit the pretty-much-forgotten small town of Springfield, SC. The speed limit sign suggested 25 through its residential streets. I chose 38 instead. Okay, I didn’t intentionally choose 38. I simply elected to ignore the laws of little Springfield, in favor of focusing on the puzzles my wife was trying to solve on her iPad. Maybe I missed the speed limit sign, but I did see the spinning blue/red lights on the police car sitting quietly in a church parking lot.

Here’s something all four of my life’s speeding violations have in common. As soon as each of them happened, I pulled over pretty much the moment the cop reached for his lights. My thought process went, “Hey, I’m breaking the law”, followed by “Hey, that cop noticed me breaking the law” and finally, “I think I’ll just pull over immediately and save him or her any further trouble”.

38 mph in a 25; yeah, that’s pretty bad. Totally deserved the ticket. At least it wasn’t another school zone this time. My last two speeding tickets, one in the middle of 1992 and the other around 2013, were earned as I passed by primary schools with loads of children on their playgrounds. Even worse, the 1992 ticket was collected from the driver’s seat of a midlife crisis two-door convertible Alfa Romeo Spider. Bet the cop loved ordering youngish me to traffic school in lieu of the ticket.

Speaking of “in lieu”, my Springfield, SC cop (who had nothing better to do because there’s nothing at all to do in Springfield) gave me a no-brainer choice in settling my flagrant speeding violation. Option 1: Pay the fine as advertised and earn four points against my driver’s license (“Ouch!”) Option 2: Pay an additional 30% on the fine and avoid the points entirely (not-so-“Ouch!”) Maybe Springfield’s not a bad little town after all… even if the ticket mocked my violation with a description of “thoughtless driving”.

Here’s the nice thing about making peace with a speeding violation before the cop even reaches the driver’s side window: you have a pleasant conversation. Officer: Do you know why I pulled you over?  Me: Why yes sir, I do, and here’s my driver’s license and registration. Officer: Okay Mr. David, let me spell out your options here (spells out options).  Me: Why thank you sir, I’ll take Option 2, if you please. Officer: Okay then Mr. David, pay the fine online and enjoy the rest of your day.  Me: And you too, officer!  It was almost as if a friendship was born over a speeding ticket.

I can’t talk about three of my speeding tickets without a mention of the fourth.  I made it through my high school driving years before ever getting pulled over – but just barely. It was on a graduation trip, where my parents loaned me their car and paid for enough gas to get me and a buddy a driving tour of the Western U.S. And right there in the middle of Colorado, streaking up the interstate towards the Rockies, I earned the blue/red lights for the very first time.

I will always remember two things about that first ticket. First, the officer gave me a personal escort to a nearby mailbox so he could watch me mail the check for the violation (no online or credit card option in 1980). Second, I turned to my buddy afterwards and said, “My parents are gonna kill me!”… which wasn’t true at all, but it’s how most teenagers feel after they get a speeding ticket in their parents’ car.

I doff my hat to those who make the effort to plead down a speeding ticket. I also admire those who continue driving after a violation, as if they don’t think the police car in the rear-view mirror intends to pull them over. Me, I embrace the fines for my brushes with the law.  It’s easy to claim accountability when you’ve only had four instances. And for the foreseeable future, I’ll be the most well-behaved driver behind the wheel.  You just won’t find me anywhere near Springfield, SC.

Standing on Tacos

Red’s Giant Hamburg – Springfield, MO – may be America’s first drive-thru restaurant. Red’s opened in 1947 from a converted gas station, closed in 1984, then opened again last year. In the United States it’s not really “fast food” without the drive-thru, is it?  McDonald’s certainly agrees, as does Burger King.  But Taco Bell, they think outside the tortilla.  Just last year the Bell opened a taco-themed hotel and resort in Palm Springs, CA.

A taco-themed hotel and resort – really, you ask?  Yes but more on that in a minute.  It helps to cover some of Taco Bell’s earlier adventures first.  Founder Glen Bell started his restaurant in the 1960s as the copycat of a local Los Angeles walk-up taco stand.  The concept of “American-Mexican fast food” quickly franchised to 100 locations in less than five years.  Today you’ll count 7,000+ Taco Bell locations in two dozen countries.  Two billion customers frequented the Bell in 2019.

I’ve always admired Taco Bell… er, from afar.  I can’t tell you the last time I navigated TB’s drive-thru (probably my kids’ high school days).  Don’t get me wrong, I love Mexican food.  But eating at Taco Bell is like supplanting an Italian artisan pizza with a Little Caesars.  In other words, I prefer my Mexican at authentic Mexican restaurants.

But there’s no denying Taco Bell’s success.  They chose six or seven essential ingredients and spun an entire low-cost menu out of them.  Take the $1.49 soft taco.  Four components: seasoned beef, lettuce, and cheese, inside a soft tortilla.  Add sour cream, tomatoes, or other options, but you’ll pay $0.40 or more for each.  The only freebies are the hot sauce packets at the pick-up window.

From the Taco Bell soft taco evolved an entire zoo of animales.  You have the Taco Supreme, Chalupa Supreme, Cheesy Gordita Crunch, and (for the really adventurous) the Nachos Cheese Doritos Locos Taco Supreme.  From the Taco Bell burrito you get the Burrito Supreme, Grilled Cheese Burrito, Beefy 5-Layer Burrito, Quesarito, and Crunchwrap Supreme.  Again, all of these wild animales come from pretty much the same small set of ingredients.

Taco Bell’s successful run endures at a time when foodies lean more towards farm-to-table organic.  So why does it still work?  Marketing.  Taco Bell’s all about creative thinking.  Some examples:

  1. Taco Bell branded their hot sauce, taco shells, chips, and shredded cheese, and you can find them on your supermarket shelves.  No drive-thru necessary.
  2. TB teamed up with several pro sports franchises to offer free food based on individual performances (i.e. steal a base, score so many points, score so many runs = free tacos).
  3. In 2001, when the Mir Space Station re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, Taco Bell floated a giant target in the Pacific Ocean and promised a free taco to every American if a bit of the space station (designed to break up) hit the target.  (No such luck.)
  4. In 2013, Taco Bell designed a waffle taco, filled it with scrambled eggs and sausage, added a side of syrup, and called it breakfast.  The waffle taco is no longer on the menu but breakfast still is (if you consider a Hash Brown Toasted Burrito “breakfast”).
  5. In 2016, Taco Bell test-marketed a Cheetos Burrito.  That’s all you really need to know, right?
  6. In 2017, Taco Bell partnered with Lyft to offer “Taco Mode”.  Rides from 9pm-2am included a stop at Taco Bell.

Which brings us to the Taco Bell hotel.  In the summer of 2019, TB converted an existing Palm Springs resort into a live-in advertisement, “the biggest expression of the Taco Bell lifestyle to date”, according to its Chief Global Brand Officer. 

Not only did they slap the TB brand all over the resort, but they also offered the full Taco Bell menu, poolside cocktails “infused with a Taco Bell twist”, a “not-to-miss gift shop” (including a Forever 21 fashion line of Taco Bell apparel), and a salon where nail art and hairstyles were decidedly “Bell”.  The resort was a pop-up, only intended to operate for a few days, but reservations sold out within two minutes of being offered.

“Gidget the Chihuahua”

Taco Bell has one more menu item I didn’t mention above: the Spicy Potato Soft Taco.  Er, had.  The Bell discontinued it but not before Bryant Hoban (of O’Fallon, MO – not far from Red’s Giant Hamburg) purchased and froze three of them.  A few weeks later Hoban sold the “mint condition soft tacos” through Facebook.  For $70.  Each.  With that kind of endorsement, it’s safe to say the Bell will be ringing for many years to come.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”, and the Fox News article, “Taco Bell is opening a taco-themed hotel and resort”.