Eat your heart out, New York. While hot dog vendors are being legislated off the streets of Gotham, here in the Copper Basin, Raymond Arthur, hot dog maker extraordinaire, still basks in the glow of appreciation.
I discovered Arthur just as one of my long-standing rituals - eating a good hot dog from a cart on the streets of New York - was being made very difficult to enjoy. In mid-July, sidewalk food vendors are supposed to be banned from a huge chunk of New York's Midtown and financial district: 144 blocks. And now comes news that that's not enough: Some folks are petitioning the city's Sidewalk Vendor Review Panel to bar vendors from 95 more blocks in Manhattan.New York visits won't be the same for me if I can't easily buy a hot dog, a bag of chips and a Coke at a Midtown corner, sit on the sunny side of the street and watch the passing parade.
Fortunately, such cares were a million miles away the other day when, here in Copperhill, I had my first hot dog at the Curve Package Store on West Tennessee Avenue, owned by Arthur and his wife, Fay.
Since Lyn and I bought a cabin in McCaysville (the two towns share a downtown), a number of people had told me that Arthur knew dogs. This day, hot and dry, seemed like a good day to try one.
As it turned out, the Bud Man was there, making a delivery. Barry Johnson of Cleveland, Tenn., added his voice to the chorus of testimonials for Arthur's steamed hot dogs: "I've eaten plenty of them," he said.
So, what does he like about them?
"Everything."
Smiling confidently, Arthur noted that Johnson always has his hot dog the same way: ketchup, mustard and chili. "His girlfriend doesn't want him to eat these onions."
Lyn's not around; pile some onions on mine, please.
As he laid mine out, Arthur talked with great zest about the formula for a perfect dog. We agreed that it seems an ideal food on a hot summer day; it's a no-sweat dish, somehow evocative of fun and games and grand old pleasures.
"I found a recipe that everybody likes," Arthur is saying, discreetly ignoring the chili running down my chin, offering a fork that I decline. "All-meat wieners, and I make sure they're fresh. You can't beat a hot dog like that."
He ought to know. He's been making them for 22 years at this same location (named Curve because that's what the street does). It was 18 years ago that Arthur stopped using wieners that were not all beef. He recalls a conversation with his supplier: "I said, `How about an all-meat wiener.' They said, `We got 'em.' I said, `Lay 'em on me.' "
And he's been laying 'em on customers ever since. On a good Saturday, especially if there's a ballgame at the nearby field, Arthur might sell 200 dogs.
And how many has Barry Johnson eaten?
Calculating quickly with pen and paper, he figured that, during the past 10 years, he's consumed "about 2,000." And that's just one man. Who can imagine how many Raymond Arthur has sold at his store?
He says he has always known the value of quality: "All it takes is one bad one to stop people from buying."
Obviously, Johnson hasn't had a bad one. And the first one I had was just great. I don't know when I'll catch up with his 2,000, but I'll be working like a dog to do it.