How to ship a giant fiberglass statue

Congratulations! You've found that giant fiberglass statue you've always wanted and worked out payment arrangements. Now comes the tricky part - how the heck do you get it home?

Our muffler man Big George in a TX warehouse

This is a question we've asked ourselves many times and also been asked many times. Unfortunately, the short answer is, "It sorta depends."

One thing we've found in our collecting of fiberglass giants the past dozen or so years is that finding one even remotely close to where you live is akin to winning the lottery. Out of our current crop of 16 statues the only one we've found in our own town ended up being our smallest statue. In that case it was a piece of cake. We drove across town, threw it in the back of our station wagon and were home in an hour. Total cost - about $5.00 in gas.

Skunky Brewster - our local find.

In most cases transportation comes down to that classic dilemma of choosing two out of three options:

• Fast
• Good
• Cheap

Let's assume your statue's shipping needs are similar to the majority we've experienced. It's somewhere between 6' - 20' tall, weighs between 60 - 300 pounds, and you'd like to get it home as soon as possible.

For us, we've determined that there are three realistic options for getting your new treasure home. We'll break those down below with our thoughts on what we like and don't like about these options.

A&W Papa Burger transport 2007

Using your own vehicle or a rental vehicle - the DIY method

This is the method we've used the majority of times and prefer if at all possible. Anything within 1000 miles of Portland, OR we tend to either drive our own (or a rental) and pick up the statue ourselves. Of the options we mentioned above this one works out to be fast and good. In some cases we've bought a one-way plane ticket to the nearest airport. picked up a rental truck in that town, loaded up the statue and then headed home.

Harbie the Seal. 1800 mile round-trip. Rental truck.

Lately we've preferred renting simply to cut down on mileage and other wear on our own vehicle. If it's a small statue like Harbie in the photo above, a pickup rental from Enterprise made the trip easy. One tip we have is to make sure the rental has a mileage allowance that fits with your trip - getting home and finding out you owe more than you budgeted stinks.

For large statues we've used both U-Haul and Penske. Both are available in a variety of sizes and most don't require a special license to drive. We recently completed a 4300 mile trip (dodging bad weather) in a 26' Penske. We have found that Penske prices can vary based on time of the month, location, and inventory at preferred rental location. We'd also suggest the optional insurance as most personal auto policies won't cover a rental truck, and if you're like us you don't have a ton of experience driving a gigantic truck cross-country. Also be prepared to get around 10 miles-per-gallon regardless of truck size.

26' Penske - these things are huge!

One of the many reasons we prefer the DIY method of statue shipping is you're able to make sure the statue is wrapped, loaded, and secured in a manner that you feel comfortable with. You've more than likely spent a fair chunk of money on the statue and in many cases even more than the statue itself to transport it so the last thing you want is someone flinging it in the back of a truck and letting it bounce around for several hundred or several thousand miles.

Some important things to be aware of when you're going the DIY route include:

Make sure you have sufficient help to get the statue in the truck. We've been stuck trying to wrangle one with just the two of us and frankly if not for the kindness of a stranger passing by the statue would have won that battle.

Bring a ton of moving blankets and ratchet straps. You can never have too many straps! If you need to lay the statue down be sure and lay blankets down first as the road vibration will wear away paint in any area that's touching a hard surface. Also, anywhere you wrap a strap around the statue make sure there's a blanket or other soft fabric under the strap.

This only works at 20 mph or less.

Will the statue be secure at night? If you're driving a box truck with a padlock on the door you should be fine. Just make sure any motel you choose has a lot large enough for your truck. If you're driving a pickup or towing an open trailer you'll have to decide your own comfort level. We always look at it in how quickly someone could steal the statue - smaller items tend to give us bigger concerns. On our last Harbie trip we spent one night with the statue getting a few less-than-perfect hours of sleep in a well-lit and well-traveled rest area. Do be prepared to wake up and find people standing next to your truck taking photos. A bit surreal to wake up to something like that...

If you're driving a 26' truck be prepared to have a much narrower range of fuel and dining options. We found that due to the height and huge turning radius of the truck many normal gas stations were a no-go. The same goes for many restaurants along the way. The easiest way was to just plan on fuel and food at your truck stop of choice. Also in most cases it was easiest to get diesel by going through the semi-truck pump island. If you're not used to these trucks, brace yourself the first time you fill up that 70-gallon tank.

Be prepared to be one of those trucks going 20 mph up any kind of hill. We just turned on our flashers and plugged along.

Wrapping up the DIY method we personally do feel it's the best option if at all possible. It's not cheap, but as you'll read below there really isn't a way we've found that would fall into that category with any kind of predictability.

uShip or something similar.

For those of you not familiar with uShip, it's a service where you list an item (size, weight, pick up and destination, etc.) and shippers bid to transport it. Over the years we've heard and read countless reviews of the service and to sum it up: it may go awesome or it may end up in swearing and tears. Using the two out of three formula from earlier, it actually breaks the mold in that it could be any of those three things as long as you put the word "sorta" in front of it.

We have used the service one time in the shipping of our muffler man from Texas to Oregon. We'd rate that experience as less than positive. For starters, be prepared for bids much higher than white-glove professional moving companies. Also, when we used the service we were not able to contact any bidder until we accepted a bid. After finally accepting a bid for a "blanket wrap in enclosed trailer" transport, we agreed upon a pick up date. We got a text when the shipper was onsite and loading our statue, but several hours later we received a call from the seller saying he had concerns with our shipper. Not the news you're hoping for. We finally reached the shipper on the phone and it turns out he had accepted other shipments and had filled his trailer before picking up our statue. He assured us he could make it work and would let us know when he was on the road. The photo below is the one he sent us to let us know all was good.

Not what we had discussed

Upon receiving the photo we quickly realized we had vastly different ideas of "all good." To begin with, we had paid extra for enclosed transportation - strike one. To secure this fiberglass Jenga he had cranked down numerous straps across the legs which in turn proceeded to crush the torso like an egg - strike two. We had a predetermined delivery date so we could be present for delivery. That date changed numerous times with the final delay caused by the shipper stopping at his house for several days before making the final trip to our place - strike three.

We know some of you have had great experiences with the service and that's fantastic. Our issue is that unless you're working with a shipper you know or one that comes personally recommended it's too much of a gamble. These statues are big, bulky and very fragile and it's too easy to damage them if you're not familiar with handling them.

Professional moving services.

This method is one that we're not as familiar with outside of a couple local moves. These providers range from established moving companies to companies that specialize in high value fine art and artifacts. Quotes we have received for a single large statue have been anywhere from a few thousand to many thousands of dollars. If you've bought a very expensive statue and your budget allows, this may be an option to consider. Services can include removal of the statue, packing and crating, warehousing and more. If this is something that works for you you can start by doing an online search for "fine art" or "artwork" moving services. You can generally find numerous reviews for each company.

The joy of watching someone else do the work

Misc. methods.

Occasionally you may find a small statue that the seller is willing to ship via a commercial freight company. Something we learned after the first time was to be sure and discuss their packing methods before the item ships. Our first shipped statue was from a dealer that had sold several fiberglass pieces so we just assumed all would be well. The item was shipped from NJ to OR. Below is how the statue arrived. To this day we have no idea how it made it here.

Somebody order a head in a box?

Our next statue that was shipped commercially came beautifully wrapped and secured to a pallet. You just never know.

We hope this post helped take some of the mystery out of wrangling these guys around the country. Just keep in mind that you'll need a bit of help, a little creativity, a sense of adventure, and a desire to own a piece of history.

Once you get them home you'll forget about the lack of sleep, the bleary eyes, the sometimes jaw-dropping amount of money it cost to get them transported, and eventually you'll even forget that weird guy you saw at the truck stop in Texas.

We'd love to hear your tips and stories regarding moving these guys around. Let us know in the comments how you got yours home.

Mission accomplished

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

From Portland to Palm Springs along Highway 99 - Day 2

Day 2 of our Portland to Palm Springs road trip is in the books and we're calling it a success as we had a blast driving along some of our favorite sections of Highway 99 as well as a few sections that were new to us. It's always interesting to discover something that's been waiting for you, in some cases, for over 60 years!

The drive today covers Mt. Shasta through Lodi - only about 275 miles, but by the time we calculate all of the u-turns and numerous trips back and forth across each town we probably covered closer to 400 miles. We're pretty sure we lapped Lodi at least three times.

Last night we mentioned we stayed close to a spot rumored to be the site of a Bigfoot crossing...you didn't think we'd just leave it at that, did you? Below is our best evidence to date - camera shy, but, oh, so handsome.


After heading out this morning, the first place we stopped was a building we've missed every time we've driven this short section of Highway 99. The Mt. Shasta Richfield station was built in 1930 and was one of eight Richfield stations built in the state - although the only one built in this style. Richfield hoped to corner the market on both automotive and airplane fueling, hence the 125' tower to attract aircraft. The station operated until 1964 and now serves as a private residence.


Next up was a stop at one of our favorite Highway 99 towns: Dunsmuir. The town of Dunsmuir (or Pusher as it was originally named, albeit for one year only) was established on Monday, August 23rd, 1886 when the Southern Pacific Railroad reached Cedar Flat (later Nutglade - the current Dunsmuir south yard), and opened the station of Dunsmuir in a box car.

The commercial district, which is roughly bounded by Sacramento and Shasta Aves., Spruce and Cedar Sts. (both sides), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Our favorite place in Dunsmuir is the Cave Springs Resort on old Highway 99 (current day I-5 Business Loop.) We'd love to show you a photo, however we've been bested yet again by sunlight shining directly into the camera as we try to photograph the resort. If only they could move it across the street!

Cave Springs was opened in 1923 by Clint and Ida May Brown and operated under the name of Brown's Auto Camp. In 1925 the first six cabins and a few tent platforms were built along the river. A store and a home were built next to the highway where the pool is now. The year 1926 brought more cabins at the top of the hill, and in 1929 the Brown's granted some land to the state to expand the highway in front of their place. By now the Brown's were calling their business Brown's Auto Park which would later be changed to Brown's Modern Motor Lodge and finally in 1952 the Cave Springs Resort.

Just down the road from Cave Springs sits the closed Corral Cafe with a fantastic cocktail sign mounted on one of its stone chimneys.


We understand that the Dunsmuir Visitor's Center has recently re-opened and hopes to highlight the importance of historic preservation in the community. We wish them the best of luck!

Following Dunsmuir, our next stop was Redding. We came into town on old Highway 99 (now Highway 273), and were greeted by this amazing sign above Lim's Cafe.


This approach also gave us a chance to stop and take a look at a place we comment on every time we pass by. The business sits along a frontage road with no clear access from I-5 and we were thrilled to crack the riddle of how to get there. We're happy to report that numerous guests were enjoying a round of golf today.


Designated a National Trust Main Street in 2006, downtown Redding has an eclectic and well-preserved collection of buldings. From the Streamline Moderne fire station to the Art Deco Cascade Theatre, there's something for fans of every almost every architectural style.

Preservation Note: Developed in the 1970s by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Main Street program emphasizes how an architecturally interesting, pedestrian friendly, locally owned business district supported by the community is sound economics.

We've visited a number of these Main Street towns across the Southwest and can attest to the success of the National Trust's common sense approach.

Now, back to the Cascade Theatre. According to the Cascade's website, the theatre was "constructed in 1935 as a 1,348-seat movie palace and vaudeville stage. One of the few theatres built during the heart of the depression, the Cascade Theatre was a magnificent example of art deco architecture in California, complete wiht gold and silver gilded walls, period chandeliers, ornate plasterwok, a grand neon facade and marquee and beautiful murals. "

Even with all this beauty, the Cascade was unable to compete with new mall-based cinemas and closed its doors in the late 1990s after years of declining ticket sales.

An enormous preservation effort led by the the Cascade Theatre Restoration Steering Committee and Southern Oregon University's public radio network saved the Cascade for future generations - and road trippers like us - allowing the beautifully restored theatre to reopen in August 2004.

The Cascade Theatre has the triple honor of being on the National Register of Historic Places, the California Registry of Historic Resources, and a recipient of an Art Deco Society of California Preservation Award.


Just a couple of blocks away from the Cascade is a fun stretch of Highway 99 with a couple of outstanding 1950s and 60s era motel signs. We can't fit all the photos in this blog, but here's a great example of why tracking down the path of old highways can be so much fun.


After Redding, we headed down to Red Bluff to visit another impressive community project focused on preserving a town's architectural heritage: the Cone-Kimball Clocktower.

Destroyed by fire in 1984, the community (led by the Red Bluff Rotary Foundation) was successful in raising grant monies and donations to rebuild what we've learned is referred to as the "heart of Red Bluff." In a neat twist of history, the tower's groundbreaking was held on April 30, 2005 - the 21st anniversary of the fire that destroyed the original structure.


One thing we forgot to show you yesterday were these handy Historic 99 signs. Although spaced somewhat few and far between, they've definitely tended to show up just when we need them.


Thanks go out to Assemblyman Statham for introducing ACR 19 in Feburary 1993, a measure that highlighted the importance of recognizing the significance of US 99 to the history of California.

With our light fading, we decided to wrap up the day's photos in Lodi. Along a stretch of Highway 99 now known as Cherokee Lane, we found this remnant of the highway's glory days:


And finally, we'd read that the Welcome Arch in Lodi was something special and not to be missed. Trying not to break the speed limit or endanger any pedestrians, there was much cheering in the car as we made it just in time for this sunset photo showing some of the arch's detail.


And about five minutes later looking east.


Tomorrow will be another big day as we look to cover another 250 miles or so, searching for more great sights and preservation stories from Stockton to Bakersfield and points in between. Hope you'll join in!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving and we hope you all get a chance to spend the day with friends and family.

We'll be resting up for the Holiday Expo and hope to see some of you this weekend at the show.

We also wanted to give you a sneak peek at some of the things we've got planned for the Vintage Roadside blog over the next few weeks:

An interview with the former head "Aquamaid" from Aquarama.

A story about a couple who are restoring a vintage motor court - The Westerner, in Salida, Colorado.

A feature on the Main Street Program in Duncan, Oklahoma.

A feature on the Shattuck Windmill Museum in Oklahoma.

An update on our Tik Tok Drive In documentary film.

And, news regarding our gallery show of photography coming up in the month of March.

Hope you're all having a great week,

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

P.S. We promise to post the final day of our road trip in the next couple of days. We had a great time visiting with the ranger at the John Day Fossil Beds and had a fantastic time at the Painted Hills.

Vintage Roadside says goodbye to Tulsa!

We had a fantastic time at the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual conference in Tulsa and wanted to say thank you to a few of the people who made it such a great week...we promise to include a few photos of Tulsa, too!

First and foremost we'd like to thank Susan Neumann--a smart, organized, encouraging sort of person with a great sense of humor. We couldn't ask for a better person at the Trust to work with. Nord, thank you for allowing us to spread the word about Vintage Roadside and the National Trust for Historic Preservation on Good Day Tulsa. Kelly now knows where her hands should be if she wants to appear relaxed on TV! And for helping us through our first-ever panel--thanks, Dolores. Charlotte and Farin--after meeting you two it's easy to see why the Exhibit Hall was such a success. We can't wait for Nashville! And another thank you to James for coming by and listening to the story of how Preservation Magazine started us down the road to Vintage Roadside. David Brown, thank you for stopping by - it was great to meet you after hearing so many nice things about you.

To everyone who came by our booth and to our panel - meeting so many of you made this event one we'll never forget. We really appreciate the opportunity we had to talk with you all. It was wonderful to hear about the work each of you do and we look forward to hearing more about your projects.

To our booth neighbor, Ed: "Go Buffalo!"

A couple more people we'd like to thank are Ron Warnick of Route 66 News and Stacey Bayles of A1A Eastern Oklahoma. Ron, it was a pleasure to finally meet you. And Stacey, thank you for kindly providing us with a copy of Tulsa's Art DecoGuide - an invaluable guide to Tulsa's beautiful art deco buildings published by the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture. You'll see we put it to good use in the photos below.

Although we'd never been to Tulsa before, we're looking forward to the next chance to go back. From the work of Tulsa's Main Street Program to the lasagna at Dalesandro's, Tulsa is definitely a place worth visiting again.

Finally, a few images from around Tulsa to give you a glimpse of the city's great architecture.

The beautiful neon sign at Cain's Ballroom.

Vintage Roadside's booth at the conference.

The Boston Avenue Church.

Another look at the Boston Avenue Church.

Phoenix Cleaners. One of the many streamline gems around town.

"Cottage" style Phillips 66 station.

Tulsa Union Depot.

Will Rogers High School.

Downtown Deco detail.

More downtown Deco.

The Mayo Motor Inn parking structure. One of our favorite streamline buildings downtown.

No visit to Tulsa is complete without a drive out to Catoosa
to see the Blue Whale :-)

For those following along on our road trip home to Portland, we're headed to Dodge City, Kansas before hooking a left to Pueblo, Colorado. Westward, ho!

Vintage Roadside brakes for:

With just one week to go until we head out for our 4000+ mile Route 66 road trip we thought it would be fun to post a few photos from recent west coast road trips. While any type of neon sign, historic building, or large fiberglass statue will stop us in our tracks, we're really looking forward to meeting some of the people that work so hard to keep these icons of the roadside going for all of us to enjoy.


We'll be working to highlight these people and some of the projects they're working on. Every place has a great story and we're looking forward to sharing them.


We hope you'll enjoy what we find along the way. We also plan to post further information, including ways you can become involved with the projects after we return from the trip.


If you know of any preservation projects along Route 66 that you'd like us to visit let us know.


We'll also be stopping at just about any tourist attraction we can find. Anything we see described as a "tourist trap" automatically becomes a "must see". For us the term "tourist trap" has always been a compliment! The three of the most important parts of a road trip are:

1. Eat - drive in or diner
   
2. Sleep - mom and pop motel
   
3. See stuff - the more roadside signage, the better the attraction
   

So, here's to road trips, neon signs, fiberglass statues, roadside attractions, drive in restaurants, historic buildings, the people who work to save these things, and preservation in progress!

Vintage Roadside heads to Tulsa for the NTHP conference

We'll have some big news regarding our drive from Portland, Oregon to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual conference in the next few days!

One of the things we're thrilled about is that we'll be posting daily blog reports along with loads of photos on our trip out to Tulsa. We're looking forward to spending some time along Route 66 and as many other small highways as we can fit in. Once we reach Tulsa we'll be exhibiting at the conference and speaking on one of the many educational panels.

As historic preservation is near and dear to us this is shaping up to be one of the highlights of 2008 for us.

We look forward to having you all ride along with us!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Vintage Roadside and the Tik Tok Drive In featured in the Oregonian newspaper

We'd like to say thanks again to Inara Verzemnieks of the Oregonian for the wonderful article she put together about Vintage Roadside. It was a pleasure working with her!

Tik Tok: The past comes rushing in

by Inara Verzemnieks, The Oregonian

Sunday July 27, 2008, 12:33 PM

Leah Nash/Special to The Oregonian

Gregg Clapp, left, films Jeff Kunkle, center, interviewing Lyle Lilja
about the good old days at the Tik Tok Drive-In.

Most people look at a city and see what is there, but some people -- possessing a more finely tuned connection to history than the rest of us -- can look and see what used to be there. The past overlaid on the present, an invisible, vivid landscape.

You know that parking lot at the intersection of Sandy and Burnside? There used to be a drive-in (restaurant) there, open 24 hours a day and the kids parked their cars outside — the El Caminos and the Chevys and Corvettes — and sometimes the kitchen made gooseberry pie, and the manager, he used to tell the girls who worked there (in short little skirts that showed everything but the president) that he needed them to hop up on the counter and change the lights. … He got fired.

“What is it about connecting with the past?” Kelly Burg asks.

She’s got her own answers to this question — and a life built around them — but it’s worth throwing out there to the rest of us, to all of us who drive by and only see the parking lots.

On a recent Saturday, Burg and her husband, Jeff Kunkle, actually were at the intersection of Sandy Boulevard and Burnside, along with a whole lot of other people, eager to conjure memories of the Tik Tok, Portland’s first drive-in and something of an institution from 1938 to 1971 — with its “Time to Eat” sign and giant coffee cup billowing neon steam. Eventually, like so many roadside attractions of that time, it disappeared.

The Portland Foursquare Church now owns the property where the Tik Tok once stood and, together with the Road Knights Car Club, had organized a daylong reunion — complete with classic car show, hot dogs and cotton candy — for anyone who wanted to reminisce. Near the classic car registration area, Burg and Kunkle had set up their booth, an inviting display of T-shirts with intriguing vintage logos, including one featuring the Tik Tok. But selling T-shirts actually was only a small piece of their overall mission.

Really, they were engaged in a kind of guerrilla campaign for historic preservation.

Both had always been drawn to the old, the overlooked, the disappearing. When they went somewhere on vacation, they made a point to drop by the local historical society. They loved taking back roads and staying at old motels. They were particularly fascinated by mom-and-pop businesses from the 1930s to the’60s — the golden age of automobile travel, as Burg puts it: drive-ins, bowling alleys, motor courts, odd roadside shops and displays.

On their travels, she says, “we would find the remains of places,” tantalizing clues to what used to be. “It looked so charming. We would wonder: What happened here?”

Their impulse always was to save what they could. One of their rescues: An A&W Burger family — the giant fiberglass statues that welcomed you to the drive-in chain. They now live in Kunkle and Burg’s backyard, hoisting frosty mugs of root beer and happily eyeing hamburgers for eternity. (”The alternative was a grass backyard,” Burg says. “This is so much better.”)

But what of the buildings, the places already gone? How could you bring them back?

That’s when Burg and Kunkle started thinking about the T-shirts. If they put the logos of these lost business on T-shirts, they had a chance to resurrect them, in a way. They could get people talking about these places again, wondering about them. They would research each one, piece together its history — often spending hours pouring over old microfiche, flipping through old phone books, calling on amateur town historians — so that when people bought a T-shirt, they weren’t just buying a piece of clothing, they were also getting a story.

That was just the starting point: Their secret hope was that all this would get people thinking about historic preservation, people who might not otherwise, people who maybe found the subject intimidating, thought historic preservation only applied to mansions or other fancy places, not the things close to their lives, like neon signs or roller rinks. Maybe they could get people to see history where they hadn’t before.

And like that, what had always been a passion became their life’s focus. They quit their jobs and last August launched Vintage Roadside.

They like events such as the Tik Tok reunion because they get a chance to unearth even more history, to hear people’s firsthand memories.

Leah Nash/Special to The Oregonian

Jeff Kunkle and Kelly Burg collect memories of the past for their website, vintageroadside.com.

Their Web site includes detailed histories of their featured mom-and-pop businesses, but they are always eager to add information — the more specific the better. (From the 77 Ranch Tourist Court entry: “While we haven’t been able to track down the exact dates that the 77 Ranch operated, we do have the following fun facts from Dallas City Directories. In 1947 the manager of 77 Ranch Court was Maude Montgomery. In 1948-1949 Howard Hites is listed as the manager. In 1950-1951 Maude Montgomery returned in the role of manager once again. Yes, it does seem like there might be a story here!”)

For the Tik Tok event, they set out a display case of memorabilia in the Vintage Roadside booth, including an old Tik Tok menu (which included creamed waffles, with butter and syrup, for 20 cents) and an ashtray. Next to the case, they left a pen and a notebook, inviting people to record their favorite Tik Tok memories.

“Ate at the Tik Tok and walked over to Scotties to request a song from (local radio DJ) Dick Novak. Announced our engagement over the radio (before we told our folks). 1957.”

It’s hard to describe just how happy Burg and Kunkle seemed, taking all this in, all the people who would drift in to look at T-shirts and end up sharing stories not only about the Tik Tok but other forgotten Portland places: the barns where they stowed the trolley cars, old service stations, boarding houses.

With each T-shirt purchase, Burg handed folks a card letting them know they were eligible for a year’s free membership with the National Historic Trust (which has invited Burg and Kunkle to come speak on a panel at their National Preservation Conference in Oklahoma in October.)

Soon the couple’s friend Greg Clapp arrived. They had been thinking it would be good to videotape some of these conversations — further preservation — and create a documentary series that they could post on Vintage Roadside site.

While Burg held down the booth, Clapp, armed with a video camera, and Kunkle made their way to the old Tik Tok site, now filled with classic cars. It didn’t take them long to find some good stories.

“This was where it all happened,” Lyle Lilja said, standing by his 1951 Oldsmobile. “It was kind of the beginning point of the cruise. People went to the Tik Tok and Jim Dandy’s and Yaw’s, and then back here.” They were all young and broke. “Any money we had, we stuck it into our cars.”

But the greatest discovery came as they were heading back to the booth. There, near the hot dog table, they ran into Dolly Harris, the daughter of one of the Tik Tok’s last owners.

From her handbag, she drew a framed photo of the Tik Tok in 1968.

“I started there when I was 18,” she said. “I never got to work in the kitchen because it was too small. I got to learn to be a soda jerk. We made everything from Suicides to Green Rivers. … We made milkshakes and we made sundaes and we made our own fresh pies from scratch.” She listed them off: raisin cream pie, pumpkin, apple, cherry, gooseberry, peach cream.

“Do you remember the cook?” Kunkle asked.

“Chad was his name, and he was the head chef. And there was Larry the bus boy. … George was our butcher.”

She told them about the time the cook made clam chowder without the clams, her short-lived career as car hop because her mom thought the skirts were too short (even though her dad was the one who picked out all the uniforms).

They talked so long Clapp had to run and get a new battery.

When they were done, Kunkle thanked Harris profusely. “This is such an important part of Portland’s history, and I wanted to share it with as many people as possible,” he said.

Earlier, Burg tried to explain how she answers people when they ask why preserving these sorts of places and the memories around them is important.

“I think for us, a big part of it is roots — roots in the community. With everything new and places being torn down, you lose your connection to the past. And I think that connection is important for stability, for identity.” Which is another way of saying that maybe who we were says a lot about who we are.

Check out Vintage Roadside and its histories at
www.vintageroadside.com