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For the longest time I’ve wanted to pen a sequel to the column where I hit the road to explore some of Mattoon’s more far-flung gas stations. But unfortunately, most of Charleston’s gas stations are well within city limits. What fun is that?

Turns out there actually is something outside of Charleston that’s worth driving to for an on-the-ground report: White Castle, only an hour away, in beautiful Terre Haute, Indiana.

The legend of White Castle is often passed from father to son, usually while on road trips; tales of a place where they didn’t just serve burgers, but mini-burgers … that you ate a lot of. But such tales always ended on the same sad note: “Unfortunately, son, there’s no White Castles around here, though.”

And when you would ask, “Do you think we’ll ever find a White Castle the next time we take a trip somewhere?” with the same big-eyed sadness of Lucy asking her uncle if she’ll ever get to return to Narnia again, the answer was always, ”Maybe someday, son.” Well, that someday is today. Except in my case, it’s the first time.

Just because we don’t have a White Castle in Coles County, don’t think they weren’t ever mentioned in the Journal Gazette. I found two articles, one from 1982 and one from 1985, that both mentioned how Fountain Hills, Arizona, would place massive orders for sliders to be shipped to them every year as part of their annual “White Castle Day,” which seems odd given that the chain appears to have no connection to the Southwest at all. It’s a tradition it seems they’ve let lapse, probably because a White Castle actually opened there in 2019.

You know who in Mattoon had a “White Castle Day”? Craig Sanders, who described in his Oct. 12, 1982, opinion page article how he upset his dear grandmother in St. Louis by sneaking out to grab a quick sack of sliders instead of enjoying her home cooking. And if you’re wondering just how many burgers he could eat in one sitting, something all White Castle cool kids pride themselves on, the answer is 12, a total only beaten by JG reporter Robert Flider, who claimed he once put down 24.

When I told a friend I was planning to drive to my very first White Castle, I was met with a disgusted “ugh” and a comment that it was “wet food,” a reference to what Sanders also explained, and that I confirmed with my own eyes once I finally stood there at the counter, that White Castle burgers are steamed, bun and all, atop a giant bed of onions, with no flipping. Yeah, they just sit there. Which results in a slight, but still somewhat perceptible feeling that your entire burger, including the bun, is a bit more, let’s just say, watery than it should be.

Both Sanders’ and Flider’s personal slider records are safe, because although I skipped lunch for this, I felt like ordering eight was a safe bet; four originals and four with cheese, despite that gnawing voice in my head that a “real” slider doesn’t have cheese.

What did I think? Well, you'd better like onions, because they’re everywhere on these things. Thankfully, as a guy who recently horrified someone by admitting my preferred pizza toppings are just cheese and onions, I didn’t mind. Nor did I find the humidity level of the buns much of a problem either.

What I will admit having a hard time adjusting to was the somewhat gray pallor of the White Castle patty. Maybe it’s just something human eyes aren’t meant to examine that closely, but it’s a shade that gives the meat a compressed pet food texture that can be a little … off-putting once you get past the “I’m so hungry I don’t care what this looks like” phase. Which I did, around the time I attempted to eat No. 6.

But I powered through, trying them plain to start, as nature intended, and then tried tarting them up a bit, with ketchup at first and then with something they call “horseradish mustard,” which is something nature never intended.

I groggily shoved that last slider down my face, around 30 minutes after I took that first bite, and took a second to examine the stack of stained cardboard sleeves and reflect on what I just did to those burgers, and to myself, before tabling any stupid notion to buy a case to take home in a cooler I keep in the Throwback-Mobile for food transport. Not to sound like a lightweight, but the idea of ever eating White Castle again was about to make me gag so hard I’d see stars.

I discovered the answer for what I had done to my body at what used to be known as the Honey Creek Mall. That’s where I decided to take a sentimental lap, since it’s where I purchased my 99th favorite albums of all time from the Camelot Music store in 1995. Yes, that’s “albums” plural, because they’re tied for that spot. I’m saving the full story for a book I’m writing. You’ll buy it, right?

And as gates started to come down and a girl with curly hair sadly zipped up the Sunglasses Hut kiosk, my eyes turned skyward, desperately looking for any signage pointing me to the mall restrooms, confirming a post-White Castle-binge phenomenon that I was warned about, and stupidly brushed off as a joke.

Around midnight, safely back at Castle Clint, while watching a Joe Bob Briggs-hosted presentation of the Tawny Kitaen classic “Witchboard,” I found myself struck with a thought more terrifying than realizing that the restrooms were on the opposite side of mall — that if someone put another slider in front of me, I’d eat it. Even without the cheese. Maybe someday.