Goodbye, orange roof, we'll (sort of) miss you

News from 2122 AD: The eternal head of Elon Musk, speaking from its glass case atop the north pole of Mars, announced today through simultaneous mental annunciation that the last McDonald's restaurant has closed.

"It is with sadness that we note the passing of an era," the thoughtbeams said, "even though we have not partaken of the Big Whop since leaving physical form."

McDonald's had struggled in recent decades, even after absorbing rival Burger King in a bruising takeover that left scores dead. The last remaining restaurant announced it would be open for the rest of the week, although the ice cream machine was temporarily down.

OK, back to reality. Such a story seems unlikely to us now, because the names and chains are ubiquitous and have been around all our lives. But things change, and here's proof:

The last Howard Johnson's restaurant has closed.

Yes, the obvious retort: There still was a Howard Johnson's? There was, in Lake George, N.Y.. Unlike some restaurants that had been foolishly remodeled in the chain's latter days, it sported the original livery: the bright orange roof with the curious aqua steeple. They were everywhere, once. We had one here, and it's probably the reason I live where I do.

When I was very young my family made a pilgrimage from Fargo to the Cities to visit the new wonder of the modern world, Southdale. No I-94 to whisk you along; we took two-lane Hwy. 10. Practically covered-wagon times. We stayed at the brand-new Howard Johnson's in Bloomington, at 7801 Normandale Blvd.

It was my first motel, and everything was fascinating. The seatbelt on the toilet assuring me that it had been sanitized for my protection. The modern decor, the wrapped glasses, the strange TV where the channels were different. They don't have Channel 6 here — they have Channel 5!

Then came my introduction to the boon of the big city: a restaurant that sold 28 flavors of ice cream. Twenty-eight! You couldn't even imagine what they'd be; you ran out of ideas after five. Back home, we'd only recently gotten our heads around Neapolitan ("You mean it's three flavors? In the same box? How's that work — do you eat them all at the same time, or rotate?)

Take a picture, Dad, no one will believe this.

Of course, he didn't take a picture, because you wouldn't waste one of your seven vacation photos on something like that. And you didn't steal a menu, because that would be wrong. You told your friends, though. "And the roof was orange and they had 30 kinds of ice cream and there was a radio right in the wall and they had Channel 9!" They'd react like the farmhands talking to Dorothy at the end of "Wizard of Oz." "Sure they did, pal. Of course they did. Now you just lie back and take it easy."

It would be 14 years until my next HoJo memory, and that involved bad clams and the conviction that I had wretched up the soles of my feet. Years after that, I had a drink in the Times Square Howard Johnson, a joint that made you want to order a shot of bleach to go with your Old Fashioned.

It flourished in the highway era; in the late '60s and '70s, it was one of the nation's largest restaurant chains, and it seemed reasonable that the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" should have the HoJo logo in the space station lounge.

Of course, that movie had Pan Am, too.

The usual elements eroded the chain's stature. Corporate missteps, changing tastes. Better things came along. People of a certain era don't really miss Howard Johnson's any more than they miss Woolworth's or the dim brown Pizza Huts with the red plastic glasses and the plastic checked tablecloths. They miss who they were, or who they were with, or an edited and harmonized version of the past, sanitized for your protection.

The HoJo on Normandale is still there, but it's been branded and denuded of all architectural details. The restaurant was torn down and replaced with a Chili's. I watched the demolition of that marvelous, bizarre triangular office. It had been painted white years before, but as the claws took it apart, patches of the old orange showed through.

It's been gone for a long time, but there's not a day I drive by the spot that I don't remember what it was, and wonder what flavor I finally chose. The Twin Cities was a wonderland. If I moved here, I could have all the flavors.