Career Indoctrination

Career Shadow Day was a highlight of junior year at my high school. Our Guidance Counselor would pair us with local firms and we spent the school day "shadowing" a worker in our chosen field. The future doctors, nurses, and health professionals shuffled off to local hospitals. Budding fashion designers trekked to local department stores (No malls in those primitive days). We questioned Danny Capwell when he stated his career choice as "truck driver", but he ended up having the best time of us all riding in a big rig and getting free beers at a truck stop.

I had an ulterior motive for my career choice - "meteorologist". I got to spend the day at the airport as one of only three guys with about twenty girls who all wanted to be stewardesses. In those sexist days, flight attendants were exclusively female, under the age of 30, and met certain height / weight restrictions. In other words, they were babes.

Memories of Career Shadow Day flooded back to me today when I read that an Allentown native has chosen his career - Professional Eater. This young man entered various local hot dog and wing eating contests and hopes to break into the big time with Joey Chestnut, Nathan's Hot Dog King, and the redoubtable Kobayashi. Where would Guidance Counselor Miss Noone have sent this future Competitive Eater? To the school cafeteria? No! The Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual punishment".

Miss Noone's choice would undoubtedly have been The Texas Lunch, Home of Scranton's version of Coney Island Wieners. The Texas Lunch was a far cry from Yocco's with their mere dab of "special sauce that's one of a kind." The Texas Lunch featured 1/4 lb hot dogs fried in grease and literally smothered in an onion-laden meaty chili sauce. After consuming one wiener, one could engage in conversation with others as long as a 5' breath dilution zone was maintained. After two or more, one's breath would blister paint.

The Texas Lunch Experience would be the ultimate test for budding Competitive Eaters. If they could witness the preparation, then consume a half dozen wieners, look out Joey Chestnut.