I am going to take a moment of self indulgence and use this blog to journal about my cool day.
I grew up in North Salt Lake, about a half a mile from my grandma’s house. Naturally, a good part of my childhood was spent orbiting around my grandma’s world. Whether that was spending 8 hours picking weed for the $.75 payout at the end of the day, sneaking to throw my beets off the balcony railing when no one was looking during family diners, or digging through peanuts to get to the orange at the bottom of my Christmas stocking, my life was made better by being around Grandma VanDrimmelen. But one of my favorite memories was the saturdays she would load all of us kids in the car to drive across town to get a free hot dog from RC Willey’s. It did not matter how far away the RC Willey’s was, a free hot dog and a cup of orange drink was always worth it.
Since moving back to Utah 11 year ago, I have reveled in the times I have been able to take my kids to get free hot dogs. My favorite was when we realized that the cemetary my grandmas is buried at does free hot dogs on Memorial Day. This feels like a fitting tribute!
When I decided to run for city council and registered to be in the Fourth of July parade, my initial plan was to pass out free hot dogs during the parade. When this got vetoed by the parade organizers due to safety concerns (which were probably valid because we all know that people will mob for a free hot dog), my wise husband had the thought to just turn it into a seperate meet the candidates/free hot dogs event the next week.
So this morning I was able to hot a hot dog event that my grandma would have driven across six cities to get to. 🙂 I woke up early and threw a couple hundred hotdogs in my brother’s cool smoker. A few hours later, with the help of my incredible family, we partied in the park and shared hot dogs with anyone who walked by. It was a great day to feel like I was honoring my heritage and paving my path forward!