Jimmie’s Hot Dogs!

I have no doubt that if you placed me on island in the middle of a hurricane that was blowing sand and water in my face at 150 miles a hour, with water up to my chin, and you gave me a Jimmie’s Hot Dog and ask me to taste it, and tell you where it came from, I could. Put me in a room with a million different hot dogs, and I could pick out Jimmie’s. That may be overstating it a mite, but I have been eating those wonderful dogs for over 60 years and I can truly say that they taste and looked the same today as they have always looked and tasted.

I know, having said that, you think those dogs are the only thing I eat, don’t you? Actually, I mostly only get them when I go home to Albany Georgia for a visit. Today was such a day. We Butler’s have been gathering each year on the Saturday before Christmas at my parent’s home for the past six decades. My mom always cooks Brunswick Stew and we get Jimmies to go with it. That tradition has not changed in all of those years. Five generations of kids have eaten those dogs at their house, and I don’t know of one that doesn’t love them.

On many occasions my parents, when coming to Florida to one of my kid’s birthday parties, would bring a cooler full of the hot dogs. Two of my daughters rode up together today, and one said to the other, “I don’t know what exit is what around Albany, but I can get you to Jimmie’s.” At lunch today my wife Barbara Jo, and daughter Terri Jo, held up the Jimmie’s while daughter Candi Jo, took a picture of them and sent it as a ‘Goode Goode’ to Missy Jo, my daughter in South Carolina that couldn’t make it this year. They got the expected reply. I simply can’t explain the attraction to this phenomenal food. When we cook the dogs at home I may eat two, and if I get one at the fast food restaurants, I usual get just one. However, I can eat four Jimmie’s before I can even take a sip of tea.  

So, what is so special about them? I don’t know if I can tell you or not, without you experiencing one of those delectable treats yourself. While you can get them with all the modern trimmings, the two dogs that are the most sold, and also their flagship are, ‘All the way and without onions,’ wrapped in wax paper and put into a brown paper bag. And since people buy them by the dozens, the bags will have on the front something like; ‘16AW or 12 WO.’ All the way is a little red weenie on a toasted bun, sliced down the middle rather from the side, with mustard, chili and onions. Without onions is just that. They are sold from the same building across from the bus station with no tables or chairs, and behind the same counter by the same women as they were in the 1940’s. Well, maybe not the same women, but when I close my eyes and look back, I see the same set up of four to five women behind that same counter preparing the dogs. It starts with the pot of boiling dogs, and with a lady bagging them at the other end. And the line will be out the door. I doubt anyone would dispute that.

I loved growing up in Albany where one of my very first jobs was selling the Albany Herald on the city streets as a young boy, always earning enough extra to buy at least one dog and a coke a cola. However, I’m sad to say that I don’t know the town anymore. I fear that the ‘Grand dame of the South’ has gone the way of all the other ‘Progressive cities.’  You would think that you were in Detroit instead of Albany. I have never seen such division between people. I am just thankful that Jimmie’s is still around to bring back all those youthful memories. Some traditions are worth keeping and while I know there may be others around town, Jimmie’s Hot Dogs surly ranks up at the top where it never was about black or white, but rather about the little red Winnie.

Jimmy Baltas, you did good, Jimmie’s Hot Dogs may be the last business standing in town.

David Butler

2011

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