11-11-11 and Happy Veteran's Day, Happy Remembrance Day and my 200th Blog Post

Well that was a long title! Today is 11-11-11. It is also Veteran's Day in the US and Remembrance Day in Canada. This is also my 200th blog post!

First I must thank all Veteran's, past and present, for their service. Theirs is a service I was never up for. As a teen, the thought of someone yelling at me at the crack of dawn to remake my bed because a quarter didn't bounce on it, turned me off! As an adult, that isn't an appealing thought! However, serving your country is obviously much more than that.

I do come from a long line of veterans, and as far as I can tell, they all came home. I know I have veterans in my tree of the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War and Viet Nam.

Both my parents were WWII veterans. My dad served in the United States Marine Corp (Semper Fi, dad) and my mom served in the Royal Canadian Air Force. In honor of this special day, I took my mom out for dinner. She had been craving "old school" meals (not my vegetarian stuff) and all day I wracked my brain trying to figure out where I could take her. On my way home from work, I had to stop for gas by the house (the fuel light was on), and I noticed a "family" restaurant across the street from the gas station. I decided we'd go there.

I got home and googled them and found the menu. I read it to my mom and she was very excited by the huge selection of items! So off we went. She was smiling as we walked in and the hostess seated us. As we were seated, I flashed back to my childhood. This place reminded me so much of a restaurant we used to go to on Friday nights back in the 60s when I was kid.

This place has a massive menu, a full bar, wood panelling on the walls, oil paintings hanging on the wood panelling, is open 24 hours. The extensive menu includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, kids menu, cocktails, you name it pretty much. Earlier in the week, my mom had been craving pork chops, but just couldn't remember what they were called and referred to them as ribs, but not ribs.

As we sat on our booth that was upholstered like a vintage car, I read her the menu options. As soon as I said pork chops and apple sauce, she said that is what she was trying to say the other night and she wanted that. Her dinner came with a baked potato with whipped butter, sour cream and chives, a little corn on the cobb, dinner roll and salad, and her choice of jello or tapioca pudding! Oh how old school!

I was able to order spaghetti with vegetarian marinara sauce. My dinner didn't come with all the extras my mom's did (which was fine by me). We both did get a lovely dinner salad prior to our meal that was served on chilled plates with your choice of dressing (including blue cheese or thousand island). We both picked Italian. The other throw back was that the salad also came with a package of Rye Crisp crackers and Saltine crackers!

The clientele as well as the waitress were basically of the senior generation. My mom just loved the entire experience. There was a couple there with a baby (a grandchild possibly) and young hip guy, but other than that, I think I was the youngest person there! My mom just loved the entire experience and so did I. I told her I was tempted to order from the kids menu because I flashed back. We will go there again. When I got the bill I was so surprised. My mom's meal, my meal, her glass of wine and my iced tea cost half the price that a meal for two cost at Olive Garden (two meals, glass of wine and glass of water)!