More than six years ago, I wrote, “What to do after touring a mansion exuding poshness, if you happen to be hungry? Go to a hot dog stand.

“Not just any hot dog stand, but the drive-in Superdawg. Not the original, which is on the Northwest side of Chicago, but the Wheeling, Ill., iteration that opened in January. It was on our way home.”

On Saturday, I noticed that the Wheeling Superdawg was on the way to the Chicago Botanic Garden, more or less. So we went again, the first time in more than six years. Before we got there, Yuriko said she didn’t remember any such place. But as soon as we arrived, she did. It’s hard to forget these characters.

Those are the rooftop boy and girl dogs — awfully heteronormative of them, some nags might say — but they’re also featured in a lot of other places, including on the packaging and the napkins. They’re also on the sign that faces the road (Milwaukee Ave. in Wheeling). These anthropomorphic hot dogs rotate slowly, unlike the static ones on the roof.
This time I had the original Superdawg. I forgot to order it without mustard, but other than that I liked it. Yuriko enjoyed her hamburger.

Back in ’10 I noted: “Each order station also has a sign that says: ‘We’re super sorry, but we’re unable to accept credit cards because of our unique drive in/carhop service…’ We went inside anyway, and they don’t accept cards there either. Retro indeed.”

I can report that in 2016, inside the restaurant at least, all manner of credit and debit cards are now accepted. Guess they figured the all-cash model was losing them some customers.

One more thing today: I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, though I have only the vaguest memories of it as a prime-time show in the late ’60s. One of the stations in San Antonio started showing it in the after-school slot in 1973, when I was in junior high. That I remember. The first episode the station aired was “Devil in the Dark.”

The series, and all its successor iterations, have been hit or miss over the years. Its starting concept — the pitch Roddenberry supposedly made — was “Wagon Train to the Stars.” Does anybody remember Wagon Train any more?

My own fondest memory of the show I’ve written about before: “More than 30 years ago, I spent a few days camped out in a dorm room at MIT. I noticed a few things while there, such as that everyone on the hall went to the common room to watch an afternoon showing of Star Trek, and everyone knew the lines. (The original series; because this was 1982, the only series. Patrick Stewart was still just a Shakespearean actor who’d played Sejanus for the BBC.).”