Once upon a time, there were over a thousand Howard Johnson's restaurants in this country. A few weeks ago, we were down to three. Now, there are two — one in Bangor, Maine and one in Lake George, N.Y. The hotel chain that spun off from them remains but the restaurants are teetering on extinction.
In the early seventies when I worked for Jack Kirby, there was one in Thousand Oaks, not far from the Kirby home. Jack and his wife Roz liked it because it reminded them of the ones they'd frequented back in New York. Often at the end of a workday out there, my partner Steve Sherman and I would join whatever portion of the Kirby family was around in a visit to their local HoJo's. I always had a hot turkey sandwich and for dessert, a scoop of their orange sherbet which came with a cookie stuck in it.
Jack rarely said much over dinner. His mind was always deep into the next story he would write and draw. He let Roz order for him and ate whatever she selected.
I have a very vivid memory of one dinner at that Howard Johnson's. Jack had been asked to come up with a new book for DC — something in a monster/horror vein. He came up with a name to play with — The Demon — and then didn't have much time to think about it until that dinner. Either Roz ordered his meal or he ordered what she told him to order…and then he went silent. Conversations swirled around him but he was quiet. He was writing.
Maybe fifteen minutes later, our server delivered the entrees and as we dug in, Jack said, "I've got it." He then proceeded to tell us all the entire plot of what would be Demon #1. He'd figured out who his demon was, where he came from, how he functioned, the supporting characters around him, what would transpire in his debut appearance, what everyone would look like…everything. I feel quite certain Jack worked all that out in his head while they were making my hot turkey sandwich.
He didn't exactly rush us to eat quickly. He was too considerate for that. But we could all sense Jack was eager to get home and begin committing his idea to paper so we dined at a brisk clip and I took bigger bites of my sherbet than usual. The entire comic was created at that Howard Johnson's.
It's long gone and sadly, so is Jack, though his work and influence endure. I'm sure many people my age or older have great memories of one Howard Johnson's restaurant or other. That's the only one I have but I think it's a good one. Here's an article about the next to the next to the last one closing. Soon, no one at all will get the reference in Blazing Saddles.