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Bob's Big Boy
by robert karimi

A few months ago, I went to the 40th anniversary of Bob's Hamburgers: a Newark, CA institution. The line was huge. The reason: 99 cents hamburgers. The carnivores' delight for a price everyone could agree on. Unfortunately for me, it felt like the entire Tri-city region was there.

I remember my first Bob's. we went to the one on Huntwood ave. Hunt. Wood. The name of the street gives us a feeling that we were still hunters and gatherers on the search for our daily meal. This joint was a big hut. Well, not exactly a hut. A huge building with a slanted roof. Out of the Jetsons or something. It was legendary for its big, meaty greasy French fries and luscious thick shakes. As well as its hamburgers. As a child, Bob's seemed too big. Too American. I was not worthy of its beef.

I was used to McDonald's. What immigrant child isn't? I had been indoctrinated into the Two All Beef Patties Special Sauce Lettuce Cheese Pickles Onions On A Sesame Bun Klan when I was around 3. My first tooth wrested from my mouth from 2 cheeseburgers I spewed. My mother searched relentlessly for the sign of my evolution, her little boy's growing up sign. her hands filled with the reconstituted burger, ketchup, mustard, cheese, and 2 pickles that stuck to our ashy green carpet of our apartment.

This incident did not sway my loyalty to Ronald and his golden arches. I gauged my development in those hallowed halls of Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese. Each birthday my mother would invite me to "any place I want to go for breakfast." I would choose McDonald's. Always order the Big Breakfast.

Ah, the Big Breakfast: that circular sausage patty, dried "eggs", two of the flattest, driest, pancakes you've ever seen in your life, and, yes, yummy hash brown patties: the pinnacle of fried goodness. I measured my steps to adulthood according to the McDonaldland food chain. The Big Breakfast was my way of being Big. Eating Big. Acting Big. I dreamed of one day eating a WHOLE Big Mac. Usually when I ordered a Big Mac, my little hands would struggle with it. My mother would roll her eyes, knowing I had tried to grow up to soon and help me finish it. She would always chime, "Ay, wasting food that could be feeding starving children in Africa" while she reached for the incomplete burger.

My relatives would help reach my Big McGoal. To fulfill the prologue to the American Dream, we would usually go to the McDonald's on Decoto Road, across the street from my childhood paradise: Kennedy Park, in Union City, CA. This McDonald's felt like a city monument in my young eyes. It was one of the first fast food places in town, and it had the history of the name of the town on a plaque as if the state had come and canonized this place in the name of all that is good and historical.

This McDonald's even had a huge train shaped set of booths. This was the epitome of kid cool: burgers, history, and interactivity. And... Grimace(1).

My relatives' constant arrivals in the late 70s also allowed me to experiment with the menu. The Big Mac was still my goal, but I would have to work my way up to the two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. First, on my radar was the Fish Filet. One bite of this tartar doused faux fish, and my young taste buds went off into yak-yak-yak. My mother gave a very stern look to me after this first bite. "The relatives are here!," her eyes would infer, "How could I?! You order it. You eat it."(2)

The Fish Filet was nasty. N-asty. It quickly became a figment of my imagination.

When my aunts and uncles came for a trip to Reno, I got to try the McChicken. Processed parts fried to a golden brown. McChicken, how you capture the young imagination.

My cousins who came along would marvel at my Americanness (at least I would imagine), and how I was able to eat things other than the meat on the menu. They would eat their little cheeseburgers, dream the Big Mac dream like me, but fear to delve into the deep cultural wasteland of the McChicken. It was drenched in mayonnaise like its Fish cousin was in tartar. No matter. I was culturally flexible. Diving in, while they were still wading into the cultural pool. Hah! Me, American. You, not!

We would sometimes eat our McDonald's in Kennedy Park. Usually, the local homies would be chilling in the park. Their Derbies worn easily on their bodies, as easily as their walked, cruised through Decoto or this park. My mother would always make sure of my location when they were around. Her voice would call out to me every 5 or 10 minutes: "ro-bert-o." I never knew if the chisel-faced ones or the big baby huey ones that would cause her to quicken her voice.(3)

I would nod, respond, and go on eating or playing on the slides, after eating, of course. The "homies", usually Mexican-American, would always say something about us under their breaths. We were the immigrants. The foreigners. They were the Americans. Granted a couple of them had Viva La Raza tattooed on their arms or chest. Symbols of Chicanismo burned through their Sears-bought t-shirts.

We were wetbacks. At least I heard them whisper this while I ate my McDonald's. I didn't know what it was. I just knew, while I was eating my McChicken, I didn't want to be one. The way they said it. Their Derbies jostling up and down while they laughed. And, my cousins, who couldn't understand English, wanted to respond. But, I think, and here's where my memory gets fuzzy, my mother's voice would intervene.

Or maybe it was me. But, I never was that heroic. I was eating. The only way I thought I could gain any superior advantage. Eat everything on my plate, grow up real big, be a good American, that was the hope of my advantage.

In the 80s, I ate my first Big Mac. The whole thing. But by that time McDonald's had lost its flair. Its romantic notions. Taco Bell became my new joy. To collect the entire Looney Tunes glass collection, my new goal. We collected them all by eating crunchy tacos, and cheesy bean burritos. When the relatives came now, they did not want McDonald's either. We had begun to take them to La Taqueria in San Francisco. But that's the beginning of another story.

I'm talking about hamburgers. Bob's hamburgers. We grew into those as well. They were the hamburgers that we went to for fancy hamburgers. They didn't need to discount their price or offer toys or Happy Meals. They were big. They didn't need a jingle to lure me into one of their meaty, cheesy delights. I just savored them. We had outgrown the golden arches. It was good for special products, but for food, for a sign that our home was here in the South Bay Area, we ate at Bob's.

And the day I ate my Bob's hamburger at the 40th anniversary, I was sitting with friends, both children of immigrants to this town, but we realized with each bite of fresh beef, lettuce, tomato, processed cheese and taking two or three fries, we were home. Finally.

(1) If my father was writing this he would remind you (as he always does to me) about my fascination with Grimace and my drug-fiendish need of Grimace Green Shakes. How he drove miles and miles for one. Alas, I get to control my personal history today.

(2) A rule I would later learn to despise. In addition to its corollary: you cannot play if you do not eat.

(3) For those you not fortunate enough to wear Derbies, they were jackets with the Persian tile looking lining inside. Light enough to chill in, heavy enough to keep you warm.