Buster's Drive In is a seasonal cash only roadside hot dog and burger stand on a rural road in the Terryville section of Bristol.
I thought I would have the one last summer with my daughter for us to have some great father-daughter time. This is the first summer we haven’t been on the AAU basketball trail. Last year we went to New Hampshire, Albany, Spooky Nook Pennsylvania, Atlantic City, Louisville, and Chicago for tournaments. We spent quality time together in the car, in restaurants, hotels, basketball arenas and site-seeing: the Atlantic City Boardwalk, downtown Louisville, a boat tour of Chicago and Lake Michigan. I even had a famous Chicago hot dog when I was in the windy city. Zoey started playing AAU basketball in the 5th grade. I can’t tell you how many games we went to. It was quite a ride. The last couple years between tournaments, we mixed in trips to college recruit camps in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and down to Pennsylvania where she accepted the coach’s offer of a place on the team. With no basketball trips this summer, I felt like we would have time to do other things together. We would play tennis and pickleball. I would teach her how to golf. We would hit the batting cages where I would pretend to be an old bent over man with no teeth, stepping into the 80 mph cage. I would swing weakly at the first pitch and hear the laughter of the muscle shirted jocks and their tank topped, and then to their astonishment, I would lash pitch after pitch, taking advantage of practiced timing, stepping into the pitch even before the machine released it. I’d wink at my daughter on the way out of the cage, and you could see her pride in her wily old Dad. Then we’d go to the youth baseball field by our home where we would hit softballs, each of us taking great delight when the ball sailed over the low fence 180 feet away. We’d go down to Wolcott Park and shoot hoop. We’d play around the world (she would soundly thrash me) and then I’d rebound for her as she worked on her step-back. And we’d go back to Doogie’s for hot dogs or visit a couple new hot dog places like the old days and maybe I would add some entries to our old hot dog blog, and maybe even resurrect the book idea. That would be fun, but the summer is not turning out like that.
She has a job now, working as a waitress at a local burrito place. And when she is not working, she is playing in a women’s basketball league and attending several long training sessions a week with her old AAU coach to prepare her for the rigors of college basketball. She doesn’t like me to go to her games anymore and certainly not the practices, and well, she won’t even let me go to the restaurant. She is trying to find her own independence and that doesn’t include Dad being the only Dad watching her playing the women’s league where some of her teammates are old enough to have their own kids watching them. And she doesn’t want me coming in and ordering the burrito special when she is on duty. I understand, and I want her to be independent.
Nearly every weekend there is either a graduation party or an off to school party or both and they of course come first. I want her to enjoy herself. She gets into pickleball, but it is with her friends. We make plans to hit softballs, but something always comes up. I end up bringing the batting tee and hitting the bucket of balls myself. I send her videos of her dad cranking homer after home to which she responds with hearts and “Good job, Dad.”
Today is a Saturday and her mom and I are home alone while our daughter travels to the beach with school friends. My wife, seeing how forlorn I look, asks me what my plans are for the day. I tell her I am thinking about going out to get a hot dog. Would you like to come with me? And so, we are driving on a cloudy Saturday afternoon in July, heading down a country road. Our destination: Buster’s Drive-Inn in Bristol. I have never been there before. We will eat hot dogs. I will take some pictures of the place and the hot dogs and then write about them in my old hot dog blog. This activity will fill some of the time.
Buster’s has been a roadside attraction in the working-class town of Bristol since the 1960s - a third-generation family business. It is a cash only seasonal hot dog and burger place with a walk-up window and several umbrellaed picnic tables.
I order the foot long Michigan dog, which is a basic dog in a toasted New England open on the top style toasted bun with their special meat sauce on top. We also get soda and sweet potato fries. I ask the young man at the window, “Who makes your hot dogs?” He tells me the name of the high school girl behind the flat-top grille. “No, I mean, what brand of hot dogs do you serve?” He asks her and being the cook, she is right on top of it. Martin Rosol. Martin Rosol is a local hot dog maker in nearby New Britain who makes beef and pork dogs that are used at many of the local hot dog places. The natural casing on their dogs produces a distinctive snap when you first bite into them.
With everything going on in the world, all the partisan turmoil, it is nice to see people sitting out at these picnic tables, enjoying hot dogs and burgers together. There is a Nissan with a faded Biden bumper sticker on it next to a red pickup with a Trump banner. Around us there is only laughter and the sounds of hearty eating. No one is taking about inflation, the war in Iran or that AI might wipe humanity from the earth. The sun has even broken through the clouds.
“What are we going to do with our Zoey gone?” My wife asks.
“We’re going to have fun together and do some road trips. And me, I’m going to eat some hot dogs.”
Little do I know that this is Day of 1 of 365. All I know is that I am enjoying my dog and my wife’s company and the peacefulness of this July afternoon.
Notes:
1. Michigan Dog- A Michigan dog is generally a hot dog with meat sauce in a split top bun. It seems to have migrated from Michigan to Upstate New York (Platsburgh) in the 1920’s and traveled to Connecticut and other areas from there. It is distinguished from a Coney Dog by its more finely ground meat as opposed to chunkier sauce.
