So Long Mac - And Thanks For All The Burgers

It didn’t matter whether it was the weekend or a weekday, the question became familiar over the next four and a half years.

“What are we doing for dinner?”

“Harcombe (the college cafeteria)?” …. “Nah, not feeling it.”….. “Subway?”….. “Not in the mood for sandwiches”…. “Huddle House (another Clemson staple)?”….. “We just ate there last night at 1 am.”…. “Clemson House?”…. “Don’t want to walk up that hil”….

“Hey, have you guys heard about this place called Mac’s?,” somebody said.

“Yeah, actually. A guy at church was telling me about it. Said they have awesome burgers and that the guy who runs it is really cool,” I said.

Nobody had any idea where this place was. We just decided to go find it So we all piled in my friend Greg’s 1973 Monte Carlo known as The Battlewagon. Not quite recalling who all was with us, I’m pretty confident there were more people in the car than for whom there were seatbelts.

We drove around the city of Clemson (which really doesn’t take too long) a few times, not finding this place called Mac’s.

Frustration started to set in. So, finally, we decided to ask someone.

We saw a university police officer patrolling one of the lots, pulled up to his car, rolled down the window and asked if he knew where Mac’s is.

Image source: Anderson Independent-Mail, www.independent-mail.com

He joked around with us at first, asking us what was wrong with the school cafeteria, and why we wanted to go to this place called Mac’s. Finally he told us where it was.

So we went. And it was closed.

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Mac’s Drive-In opened in 1956 in Pendleton by friends Dan Gentry and Harold “Mac” McKeown. Mac sold the restaurant a few years ago – but that didn’t stop him from still being a fixture there.

Mac died Wednesday night.

He was great guy and was a friend to everyone.

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The first time I ate at Mac’s Drive-In was a few weeks after our adventure in finding it.

It’s kind of a small place. I just remember the first time I walked in there I was like “Wow. It’s like Clemson exploded on the walls in here!” But the experience is truly in sitting at that counter and taking the environment of the diner in.

There are photos dating back to the early days of Clemson;almost all are photos of Clemson sports, and as you might imagine, most of those were of Clemson football players – of yesteryear and of present day. Many were autographed.

“How you boys doing today?,” he said as we entered.

We sat down at the counter. Now this was not the type of place where you ask for the menu. You just know you’re going to get a burger. And you don’t necessarily have to say that’s what you want.

“Cheeseburgers all around,” said one of my friends.

There were only a few other people in the diner at the time, but for the time being, Mac was welcoming us and asking us if it we were freshman. As if he didn’t know.

I’m sure the flag went up when we walked in the door and our jaws dropped open at the love for Clemson all over the walls. Yeah, we were Mac’s newbies alright.

I told him that Clff, the guy from church I mentioned earlier, had told me about Mac’s Drive-In. Cliff played on Clemson’s 1981 national championship team.

“How’s ol’ Cliff doing?,” he asked.

That was just Mac. He knew all the Clemson players. He was friends with all Clemson students. He knew when it was your first time there. Over time, he watch as those same students graduated, became parents, brought their children to his diner to introduce them to this place, this food, and this man; and the cycle repeated. It's a Clemson family thing. It's just feels right.

I don’t know whether he ever picked up on my name. I ate there enough that he probably began to call me “ketchup and pickles.” While I’m just humorously speculating on that, that’s seriously what I would get on every burger – and I still do.

I just know it’s a very special place, run by a very special man - a person who would welcome you as you came with a “Hey guys” or “Hey there big man” – something along those lines. Maybe not immediately. He may have been behind the grill at that particular moment. But once he saw you, he would always greet you.

I know there’s no way I can count how many times I went to Mac’s and how many of his delicious burgers I consumed.

I remember occasionally going in on a Monday and he would be leaning against the counter having conversations with his patrons about the game that had just been played two days before. That was always really entertaining.

The visit usually was a result of that question “What are we doing for dinner (or lunch)”?

Mac’s Drive-In is just one of those places that helped make my Clemson experience memorable - and so did Mac. As the place and the man did with countless other Clemson students.

All I know is that the diner better live in on Mac’s name. What a tribute it would be to the man if it was still around in another 100 years.

Your Tiger family will miss you Mac. So long – and thanks for all the burgers.

Reflection Break, Let's Check Out The Numbers

Just to provide a break from the seriousness and reflection of the last post and the several upcoming posts, I decided to go ahead and look and see what Google Analytics has to say about Methodical Mayhem in 2009. I did the same last year, so I guess I'll start doing this on an annual basis.

One good thing about this year is that it is the the first full year I have stats for. I’ll just follow the same format as last year. So let’s see here….

Traffic sources: 24% direct, 49% referring sites, 27% search engines

Visitor locations: 35 countries, including the US; 43 states in the US

Returning visitors 60% / New visitors 40%

Browser usage: 55% Firefox / 34% Internet Explorer / 4% Safari

(So far none of this is dramatically different from 2008 – except new visitors are up 6%)

Top 5 Referrers:

• Tigerdad.wordpress.com (my Dad’s blog)
• Blogger.com
• Facebook
• Dixiemagnolia.blogspot.com
• Google

My Top 3 Favorite Posts (in no particular order):

• Is, Was, Thinks, Feels, Wonders, and Possibly Even Says
  
• An Open Letter to All Those Interested in Being on the News
• It's Time to Go Back
  

My Top 3 Most Read Posts (in order, according to Google Analytics):

• 25 Things About Me
• The Mind of a 4-Year Old (from 2008, still one of the top in 2009)
• Three Guys, Two Girls, and a Car Battery (another from 2008 in the 2009 top)
• It’s Time to Go Back
• Mouths Open, Brains on Standby

(OK, so that was five. But I'm not really counting the two from 2008)

And in case you haven’t checked out the following posts on my friends’ blogs, here's a list of my personal favorites from each, in no particular order -- all of which are very worth checking out. I have to give tremendous props to Otis though as he had two standout posts this year, neither of which I could choose between as my favorite of his.

• One Night In South Carolina by Otis
• She Showed Me Her No-Penis by Otis
• Crosses at Ocean Lakes Family Campground by Timmy
• Cheeseburger in Paradise … with Fries by Melea
• From Mommy to Mom to Mother by Katie
• Happy 3^rd Birthday Sam by Sari
• Swagclub Manifesto by Kamran
• Howards Rock in Greer by Jennifer
• God’s Power by Kim
• Someday by Anne
• The Void and Avoidance by Chelle
• How to be a cool parent by Tim
• Really, I Didn't Know Buffalo Had Wings by TigerDad

One other post of note I would like to point out which is one of my favorite blog posts of all time is one published this year called "Sincerely, John Hughes" about the death of John Hughes. Please take time to read this. It's really heartwarming.

Come back in another 12 months to find out how 2010 went. Or come back more often. You might find something humorous to laugh at or a new thought to ponder.

The 2000s

They say that this was the worst decade ever.

I didn’t live through the Great Depression, but I have a feeling that the 1930s could give the 2000s a serious run for its money as being the worst decade ever.

I just wonder who DIDN’T vote for the 1340s to be the worst decade ever --- despite the fact that it was in the middle of the Dark Ages, a time when belief in science was considered heresy, and it was a decade when nearly 200 million people died of the bubonic plague.

I would tend to think that the 2000s was not the worst decade ever.

It wasn’t exactly the greatest decade ever, I’ll give it that.

I think most people will find that as they grow up, they look back on one or two decades during the life as their own personal favorites. But I think a lot of that is just due to the natural changes in people’s lifestyles, life stages, and outlooks at any given point.

You go through a decade of your childhood – when you just enjoy being a kid. You go through a decade of transition. You go through a decade in the real world when you get what’s left of the recklessness of youth out of your system, establish your identity as an adult, begin a family and begin a career.

Then you go through a few decades of being a provider, father or mother, family leader, and also experience career growth or changes.

And as that goes on, you watch the next generation go through the same cycle.

A lot of people think the 1980s was a cess pool of greed, excess, and debauchery.

It may have had its problems. But I think most of my generation will defend the 1980s to the teeth as a great decade. Was it the greatest decade ever? In some regards maybe, in others probably not.

We experienced the birth of MTV, the video game industry, countless fads and trends – and lots of other cultural changes, new ideals, and role models – all of which helped to shape our outlook, serve as a backdrop for our youth, and mold us into who were are today. We did have one thing going for us though in that the U.S. had its second greatest president ever to lead it through the majority of the decade.

And I don’t think most of us Children of the 80s turned out too bad.

Not that I don’t think that the children of the 2000s will turn out bad as a whole, but something tells me they won’t be as quick to defend the decade of their youth as the Children of the 80s are.

That being said, again, I don’t think the 2000s were an entirely bad decade. It had its pros – and it had its cons.

I just hope as we all have all gone through this decade that the things we have all learned through our shared experiences will help make the 2010s a much better decade.

So here’s to a new decade. It can always be worse than the one before, but let’s hope not.

End of Hiatus

When I wrote my last post here on MM, I was gearing up for what ended being a very busy fall. In the last three months, I have put together two magazines at work and have been working with some folks on redesigning our college’s web site.

So I didn’t really put a concerted effort into blogging – and imposed a hiatus, of sorts, on doing so.

“Life intervened,” to use a phrase from my dad’s blog.

I have missed blogging. There’s been more than one occasion when I’ve sat down to write something – I had gotten several paragraphs into a few topics. But not at any one of those points did I consider posting what I had written.

I guess my heart just wasn’t in it. I was too distracted by work. Or by the holidays. Or by praying this stupid healthcare bill would just die and go away.

Distracted by the economy. Distracted by our weird cat who is trying to eat a piece of twist -tie right now…

Hold on while I go take that away from her….

OK, I’m back.

Distracted by Twitter. Well, I got rid of that last week. I decided that I had no need for it. It was too different of an animal for me to get into. I just didn’t see the point in it.

Distracted by Facebook. I spend way too much time on Facebook. Kinda reminds me of college when I spent way too much time on bulletin boards and downloading Doom plug-ins. Except Facebook goes to entirely new levels to suck you in. Whether it’s updating my status while I’m waiting in the dentist’s office or getting on Mafia Wars first thing in the morning – I think it’s time to reign some of that in. So this week I’m trying an experiment.

I de-Facebooked a few days ago. No I didn’t anything crazy like delete my account. I just haven’t logged into it for going on four days now. I’m trying to see how long I can go before I start to have Facebook withdrawal.

Now that the holidays are said and done and the crazy fall semester is said and done, I’m hoping things will slow down a little. I’m hoping to get back into blogging on a regular schedule.

I was reading something recently that successful bloggers have to have a focus. That nobody wants to read things that don’t have some sort of message.

I agree with that – to an extent. But at the same time, that wouldn’t necessarily hold true to the title of this blog, Methodical Mayhem.

At the same time, I think that bloggers should have the right be a little off the proverbial wall. I’ve never really considered myself to be totally on the wall to begin with.

So focus, schmocus.

You may find a little more structure in posts to come here on MM. That’s really yet to be seen. But I do have some topics in mind that have been rattling around in my cranium for a few days or weeks, so keep an eye out.

There’s interesting stuff to come - especially in the next two days.