Eating in Lebanon

 In the 1940's and 50's, when I was a youngster in New Hampshire, my family didn't have enough money to eat in restaurants very often, and when we did, it was almost always in one of two family-owned places in Lebanon, the next town north. One, called the Nubridge, was near a bridge over the Mascoma River, and the other, the Riverside Grill, was on the banks of that same river several miles upstream, just east of town. No matter which restaurant we chose, my meal would be a plate of fried clams. Both places served them in a heap, next to another heap of french fries, and a small serving of cole slaw, and a fountain coke served with lots of ice in a fluted brownish plastic glass and a straw. Occasionally, we'd eat in a similar place along the Sugar river in Claremont, but their clams were not as good as the ones in the Lebanon restaurants.

Fried clams were Mom's favorite and were not particularly expensive (the latter may explain the former, and most certainly what comes next) and on our way on Route 120, she'd comment on how good those clams were going to taste. By the time we got to the restaurant, probably because of what some scientist called a conditional response to stimuli, all I knew was that I would order fried clams. I have no recollection of ever reading the menu and I certainly don't remember ever having anything else.

To this day, I salivate at the thought of those clams and whenever I travel up to that part of New England, I make sure I get my fill of them, because in the part of Georgia where I live, the only clams you can find have been stripped of the good part, leaving only a deep fried rubbery strip with a faint taste of the sea. I wonder what they do with the bellies stolen from clam strips.