Sonic boom

Tomorrow is a big day in the San Diego area. A Sonic is opening in Santee, which is an eastern suburb of San Diego.

Better an eastern suburb than El Centro, which before tomorrow has been the closest Sonic to us. There's another one in Anaheim, roughly 100 miles north. It reminds me of the days back in Abilene when we had to drive 100 miles for a six-pack of beer. Then 60. Then 40. Then, finally, two, when the famous hamlet of Impact was incorporated inside the city limits of Abilene, for the sole purpose of selling booze.

The Santee Sonic is like the Impact of San Diego, for those who are addicted to Sonic's line of drive-in goodies. It is a true drive-in, too, window service from carhops wearing roller skates, just like in "American Graffiti."

I am not particularly excited by Sonic's arrival, though there were years in the 1970s when I felt that way about Whataburger, which at that time sold the best hamburger on the planet. But it didn't sell them west of Texas, until outlets opened in Phoenix, then Yuma. That was tantalizingly close, but still over a range of low mountains, down to the desert, and then an hour's drive across the desert to Yuma. I never made the trip. I found a reasonable substitute, in a Burger King Whopper, no mayo, no catsup, extra mustard. But Whoppers are flame broiled, you know, instead of off the griddle, like the Whataburger, so my yearning was real.

Sonic is not a bad joint, for a drive-in. They are second- or third-generation, following on the cruiser joints that started it all in the late 1940s and early '50s, when boys, girls, cars, drivers licenses and hamburgers converged to satisfy the various appetites of late summer evenings when gas was 15 cents a gallon. The Abilene original was the Dairy Delight, then came Mack's, and much later a Sonic appeared, after – for me – cars and cruising and girls in bobbysox had dropped off the appetite list, gas was $1.50 a gallon, and the Sonic hamburger standing alone wasn't really worth it.

Steak fingers, though, are another matter. I will cruise this Santee Sonic at some point, and check out the menu, and if I find steak fingers on it, with cream gravy, fries, and Texas Toast, I will pull into a space and press the call button. If they still have call buttons. It won't be the same, if the drive-ins of today use some GPS technology to know you've pulled in. Bad enough imagining hip-hop booming from 400-watt speakers two cars over. I wonder if Whataburger execs will be watching the Santee Sonic experiment. Maybe, baby. Well, that'll be the day.