My mother will be 89-years-old this year, and during a recent visit I suggested we rent a car, drive to New Rochelle from Manhattan, and take a look at the house she grew up in. I’d never seen the house at 10 Argyle Avenue, and my mother had not been back to see it in 80 years.
We bundled ourselves into a $59 rental car, zipped up to 114th Street to pick up my sister, and the three of us set out on our family road trip. After living on the west coast for 40 years, I’ll admit to a mix of excitement and nervousness about negotiating the highways. My mother and sister were good navigators, though, and soon enough it all felt familiar.
Wheeling off the highway, and though not entirely sure which way to go, we some how managed to drive ourselves to New Rochelle high school, located near the home my mother Flory lived in until she was ten. “Oh look,” she said excitedly, “That’s the apartment building where my grandmother lived! We’re getting close.” Sure enough, we hit Argyle Avenue and slowly rolled to a stop in front of number 10. “They’ve added windows and walls to the front porch,” Flory said, “We used to love sitting in that porch.” We oohed and aahed for a while, and then drove on. “I guess it was a pretty good house,” mom declared proudly, “ It’s still there and looks good.”
Driving on, we headed to Walter’s Hot Dogs, a road-side stand since 1919 and a spot to which my mother, my sister and I had repeatedly been drawn in childhood. We traveled the Post Road, named for the original postal route up New England that passes through town after town all the way through Maine. In ten minutes or so we neared Walter’s, in the town of Mamaroneck. Many towns in the east retain their native American names, and Mamaroneck is one of those.
Rounding a curve on Palmer Avenue we could see the quirky green pagoda-style roof of Walter’s, and we got a bit giddy. “There it is!” my sister squealed like a 10-year-old. I pulled over to the curb and we all began to giggle. “Let’s eat hot dogs!” I enjoined, my vegetarian eating habits forgotten in the moment. We piled out, and joined a short line of mostly older folks; Walter’s is all take-out. “Yay!” my sister squealed again, and we ordered at the window. I began to worry; maybe memory, as it so easily can, had greatly embellished my experience of Walter’s Hot Dogs.
Split length-wise, grilled in a buttery sauce, placed inside a warm toasted bun with Walter’s mustard and wrapped in paper for $2.15 each, we dove into them like little kids, grinning with every delicious bite. My memory, gratefully, had not deceived me. The others standing on the sidewalk eating their hot dogs were watching the three of us, our excitement palpable. “How long have you been coming here?” we asked one elderly woman. “I’m going to be 89 and ate here as a kid!” Flory chimed in, laughing. The woman smiled, introduced her mother, also in her 80’s, and bit into a hot dog. “Still the same,” she said, taking another bite. “We all come back to Walter’s.”
