The Sign
Sometimes I think I’d murder someone if I saw the right neon sign.
Neon just gets people to do stuff they don’t want to do.
Neon is why house keys get copied, people stay in skanky motels, and drink mediocre beer.
I suspect it has something to do with our primitive desire to bathe in firelight.
Unfortunately, unless you run Burning Man, you can’t just set your business aflame.
Enter neon.
That’s what a local hotelier Dell Rhea knew when he purchased the Chicken Basket restaurant in Willowbrook from original founder Irv Kolarik in 1963.
Before the neon, to entice people to eat his chicken, Kolarik used to flood the roof of the restaurant in the winter and pay people to ice skate on top.
Rhea knew that wouldn’t work in the summer, and so he built a glorious art-deco neon sign hailing his famous chicken basket and cocktail lounge.
Sixty years later, it’s still working on a rube like me.
It shouldn’t. I know better.