Fast-food restaurants seem to thrive on poor college kids and vice-versa. As you approach a campus the number of such eateries seems to increase exponentially. At least that’s the case in most areas.
I attended college in a small town in south-eastern Washington State. The county is not what you’d call heavily populated (less than 60,000 in 2004); in fact that works out to about 43 persons per square mile. When I first attended, the nearest shopping mall was four hours away in Portland Oregon. The city of Walla Walla, right next to the town in which my college was located, had about three drive-ins back in the early 60’s, with the A&W the only franchised one. To my knowledge, there were no others in the whole county.
When I returned in 1991 as Registrar at my alma mater, the city could now boast one Pizza Hut, Two McDonalds, one Burger King and a few locally-based fast-food drive-ins. There was no Taco Bell, no Wendy’s, no Arby’s, and no choice. And again, as far as I knew, that was it for the whole county.
I soon discovered that there was a small coterie of Taco Bell fanatics from a certain college department which dealt with living organisms that, on Saturday nights, would load up in a couple of cars and make a “Taco Bell run,” as they called it.
The nearest Taco Bell was an hour away in the town of Pasco, WA. You’ve got to be pretty desperate to drive two hours to get a couple of burritos. I discovered that this behavior had been going on for several years, and it continued for my first three years in town. I joined, mostly as an observer, only one time. Then, could you believe it! A Taco Bell opened up in town.
For more than the first week of operation, the line to get through the drive-thru wrapped all the way around a city block. The parking lot wasn’t exactly small, but you normally didn’t think of parking your car unless you were there at an odd hour. Talk about fast-food junkies! The franchise paid for itself in a matter of months.
My issue is not directly with the quality of food at such places. That is for someone else’s blog right now. But I wonder why in society in general there is such a disparity between the rush for fast food, and the seeming lack of interest in spiritual food. Is it possible that the same ignorance that blinds people to the effects of fast food on the body blinds the mind to need for the spiritual? Fast food is cheap, that’s true. But the life-giving spiritual food is free. It lasts for an eternity. And no Taco Bell runs are necessary. You can get it without even leaving home! It’s hard to beat a deal like that.
And take it easy on the hot sauce, OK?
Dr. G
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2 comments:
I remember this, actually. I was in high school at the same time and suffering from the same Taco Bell famine. Only instead of limiting our Taco Bell runs to Saturday nights, whenever someone with a car had a period or two free on either side of lunch, they would take orders from the rest of the classmates and make the run. Waiting two hours for a few bean burritos or a Mexican Pizza was maybe a long time, but oh so worth it.
I wonder if the lack of rush on Spiritual food is that it has never been denied most of us, and we don't know that we're hungry. And dying.
Good point there at the end. Thanks for the enlightenment.
Dr. G
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