Until yesterday I had never been to Kick Back Jack’s, in Fayetteville, or anyplace else for that matter. The old FSU IT crew had decided to meet there at 1 pm on Saturday. There have been many times through the years that I would be sitting at the traffic light across from this restaurant waiting for the light (from Cross Creek Mall) to change. A few times, I might drive across the intersection, with Jack’s on my right, but I wouldn’t turn in there. Instead I might turn left into the Kentucky Fried Chicken, or left and a little further to the “Bed, Bath & Beyond” (I think that was it’s name. ). That store was there for many years, and I bought many things from there, and did a bunch of window shopping in that store. It was a comfortable place to browse.

Old age keeps me from recalling another store (or even what they sold) that was located on the corner, up near to where Boston Market was located. It too has gone out of business. I loved their roasted chicken, and those various sides, which one favorite was the creamed spinach.

*I’m not in the mood to write in detail, but wanted to get started about this.

I had a Combo Lunch, “1/2 Cranberry Turkey Wrap, with a garden salad and White Balsamic Sweet Onion Dressing. Oddly, while sitting there waiting for the waitress to come around to take my order, I had gas pangs. I tried to ignore them until she got to me, but unlike the drink order, of which I was first, I’m guessing that I would have been the last food order for her. But, I had gone online earlier and found what I might like to order and eat. I changed out the french fries for the salad. And, I did eat the whole wrap. What I ordered was delicious and I would order it again if ever.

Surprisingly for this day and age, Kick Back Jack’s does not offer any nutritional listing for their various entrees, sides nor desserts, nada. But, I was attentive to the customers, both going and coming, and of note, there were a whole lot of fat bellied and assed men, women and children coming and going. It didn’t surprise me that with the menu items I saw online, that fat people like the place, and the place encourages fat people. Not saying the food isn’t delicious. But most of it isn’t healthy either.

Between my lunch at Jack’s and my Mexican Aldi’s dinner, my resting blood sugar was only 97. That’s extremely low for me. My weight was 247.2 lbs., up just slightly from the day befroe, but the scale was fluctuating like it does some mornings. I normally weigh, and then step off and reweigh and if the two weights are the same that is what I write down for the day. I’m not sure of what causes this, because it’s not the battery. I’m not sure if it is barometric pressure. But the scale will not show two of the same weights in a short period of time. And it’s not always lower, or higher.

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Years ago, in 1975 when I was attending Campbell College for a year, to recover from my first two years at Carolina, a school buddy who had a car (a dark blue Camaro, I think) drove us down to Fayetteville and we went to Cross Creek Mall. I say Camaro because there wasn’t a lot of room in the back and I think “the third guy” had to lay across the back. There were still a few stores in the new mall that were not completed yet. That’s funny. That would be 50 years ago, this year.

Now that I’ve had a few moments to think about it, the guy laying across the back was probably in a different friend’s little MG Midget type car. His name was Bill, from Raleigh, and a few years later I heard that he had been killed in a car crash. I think alcohol was involved.

I don’t recall the Camaro guy’s name, but I think he was also the guy that made a ‘tennis ball cannon’ out of a drink can & a tennis ball can. You tape the two cans together and put a pin hole in the bottom of the drink can. You then put a few drops of lighter fluid in the pin hole and shake the cans to vaporize the lighter fluid. Drop a tennis ball in the tennis ball can side, light a match and put it to the pin hole in the drink can. The lighter fluid will ignite and pop the tennis ball out, with force. We were standing between Saul’s Hall and Murray Hall and when the cannon went off the tennis ball was shot clear over Murray Hall, landing on the other side of that dorm. *Not sure if the drink can was made of aluminum or a thicker metal, but now that I think about it I’m surprised that the end of that can didn’t blow out.