Editorial
Front Page - Friday, September 25, 2009
Are We There Yet?
No petite burger
Jay Edwards
It was back to “The Hill” last weekend for the big game. Expectations, as they usually are this time of year, were running high based on a new QB who looks like he’ll be taking up some ESPN minutes, and an easy first-week win.
So we left Friday around 4 p.m., hitting the heavy traffic pretty quickly between Morgan and Conway. Kathy gasped often as I tried to avoid hitting or getting hit by other travelers while talking to friends on the phone about the game.
Things cleared some after Conway and soon we could see Petit Jean Mountain off to our left. I thought of the young lovelorn Adrienne Dumont, who in the late 1600s disguised herself as a boy so she could make the trip to the new world with her fiancé, the French nobleman Chavet, without his knowledge.
She was known on the voyage as Petit Jean, or Little John.
Their French vessel crossed the Atlantic and ascended the Mississippi River to the Arkansas, to the foot of the mountain. The Indians there came and greeted them, inviting them to stay. They stayed the summer, and when fall approached, began preparations for their voyage back to France. The ship was readied and boarded the evening before departure.
That night, Petit Jean became ill with a sickness that was strange to Chavet and his sailors. She had fever, convulsions, delirium and finally coma. Her condition was so grave at daylight that the departure was delayed. During the illness, Petit Jean’s identity was, of course, discovered. The girl confessed her deception to Chavet and begged his forgiveness. She requested that if she died, to be carried back to the mountaintop where she had spent her last day, and to be buried at a spot overlooking the river below. The Indians made a stretcher out of deerskins and bore her up the mountain. At sundown, she died.
It would be close to 5 p.m. when Kathy and I reached Russellville, which has always meant a stop at that favorite hamburger hole, Feltner’s Whattaburger. I had a different plan this day though, having heard Feltner’s now has some competition in “C.J.’s Butcher Boy Burgers,” a restaurant that opened almost four years ago on exit 81 in Russellville, where the Waffle House used to be.
The reviews for C.J.’s have been nothing but great, not only in print but also word of mouth. I had even heard two guys bragging about it at Rotary the week before.
We arrived at a good time, before hungry crowds of Cyclones descended. It was a Friday night though and we soon learned that much of the town was headed in the same direction as us, to Fayetteville, for their game against the Bulldogs.
We walked up to the bright white ordering counter, which connected to a large glassed-in meat case, like you’d find in any neighborhood butcher. I know, I don’t really remember those either. Inside the case were balls of ground chuck, ready to be cooked. Also there was a large basket of purple onions; and behind the case, a tub of potatoes.
As Chuck Berry sang “Sweet Little Sixteen,” a young lady asked us if we were eating there or taking it with us. We said we’d stay. How can you leave Chuck Berry behind?
I looked at the menu hanging on the wall and saw that my choices were two – a burger or a bigger burger. I went with the smaller, 1/3-pounder. I told her I wanted everything on mine. She had a little checklist in front of her to mark off what to put on it. I saw her hand ready to check or not check the first box and again I again said “everything.”
“Mushrooms?” She asked.
“No, I don’t want mushrooms, but every thing else.”
“Jalapenos?” She asked.
“Uh, no. No jalapenos either.”
“You want onions?”
“Gotta have onions.”
“Grilled or fresh?”
They were truly taking the art of building a burger to the next level. But at last I got her point, and let her go down her checklist uninterrupted.
“Bacon?”
“No, no bacon.”
“Cheese?” she asked.
“American.”
“All we have is cheddar.”
“How about cheddar,” I told her.
I said Kathy and I would split some fries but was told fries were included.
We sat down after getting our drinks and waited, not long, but it would have been worth it if we had. Whoever this C.J. is has figured out what makes a great burger.
There is one other item on the menu – shakes, of which there are seven choices. We passed this time but they say they pass the
standing straw test.
I’ll return to Whattaburger again, but probably only on Sundays, when C.J.’s Burger Boy is closed.
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