The secondhand delectabilities of culinary tales twice-told finally came to an edible fruition as I crossed the threshold of Coney Island and ordered not only a couple of their famous chili dogs, but a mountainous plate of that legendary Greek-style spaghetti. It was a meal that, to be sure, was a long time coming.
As I recall it, sometime after World War II ended, once my father was discharged from the Army, he left his hometown of Waurika for a job selling insurance here in Oklahoma City, moving up the ranks until he owned his own agency by the late 1950s. Apparently there was a downtown lunch joint that, while working his door-to-door racket, he would stop at for a bite and down a few dogs, always lamenting that their chili was some of the best he had ever had.