CELEBRATING THE WAY HE WANTED

My guess is that few people contemplate exactly how they want to celebrate their 89th birthday. Decade-turners and biggies like the 30th or 50th, even an 80th if they're still able to blow out the candles, notch our timelines and reverberate through our fading memories. They might trigger trips to the Caribbean, Provence or Tuscany, even overnights in a boutique hotel in NYC. 

But 89? There’s no doubt it’s an achievement. The birthday boy, though, pooh-poohs it. “What’s the big deal about turning 89 other than the fact that I’m still here. Now next year — 90 — that would be something.” (Rest assured: elves are already planning.) 

Mr. Wonderful’s 89th celebration officially launched the evening prior to the Big Day when he joined several daughters and a daughter-in-law, handsome sons-in-law (two actual, one looming), three strapping grandsons (alas, Maddie had returned to college for basketball), two elderly “Aunties” and me. We all smiled in awe as we sashayed into the festive grand lobby of the “non plus ultra” Lincoln Hotel in Biddeford which was bedecked with more Christmas glam and twinkling lights than Santa’s entire North Pole complex. 

The Birthday Boy enjoyed sipping a Bourbon Old Fashioned surrounded by most of his loved ones. (He was also undoubtedly relieved/pleased when Auntie #1 picked up the tab for several Margaritas, a French 75, an Allagash white, a Whispering Angel, Tito on the Rocks, and various other adult beverages.) 

But the old folk were beat, not to mention sated and stuffed from pork pie, cranberry coffee cakes, pumpkin breads, shortbread cookies, etc. While six in the family group opted to dine downstairs at Batson’s, the rest of us pulled on our puffer coats, scarves and hats, then trudged toward the front door. Suddenly SOMEONE suggested we couldn’t celebrate Bob’s birthday without a stop at Rapid Ray’s.

The about-to-turn-89-year-old perked right up. “YES INDEED!” he said, even though it 9 PM and well past his bed time.

Rapid Ray’s, per its website, “has been serving southern Maine since 1953. As Maine's original fast food take out, we specialize in hamburgers, cheeseburgers, steamed hot dogs, lobster rolls, french fries, onion rings and speedy service. Rapid Ray's has been an award winning restaurant and historic landmark in Saco for over half a century. Open daily 11 AM to 11 PM.” (Personal note: I’d guess some of those awards RR’s has garnered emanate primarily from the gazillion kudos spoken by Mr. Wonderful who wolfed down his first hamburger there in 1956.)

Rapid Rays is, as my witty son-in-law Tim suggests, “Quite ‘Old School.’” It looks like an old diner that has welcomed hungry eaters on the main drag of Saco for a long long time. There are no tables or seats — customers chew onion rings and munch chili dogs while standing and leaning against a wall shelf — or out in their cars. One Trip Advisor reviewer stated, “Its not knife and fork fancy, no Grey Poupon, there are a couple of park benches to sit on outside and no bathrooms.” 

When we told the two personable guys flipping burgers that Mr. Wonderful first came here nearly 70 years ago, they initially gazed at him like he was a tyrannosaurus rex, then quickly offered sincere congratulations that one of their original customers wanted to celebrate his 89th birthday at this hallowed institution. 

Rapid Ray’s was light years removed from the posh Lincoln Lobby, but the perfect birthday start for this treasured son of Maine. As the Christmas poem says with a bit of Val’s editing, “And for all, it was a VERY GOOD NIGHT.”