Buc-ee’s is building a convenience store in Missouri. I understand if you’re a little higher class than me and don’t get excited about convenience stores, but this is a big moment for my kind of people. This is like when Wal Mart came out with Hyper Mart. The Buc-ee’s people announced last week that they will break ground on their first Missouri store on Aug. 23 in Springfield and that means this is a simple day trip to us.
I know we are kind of QuikTrip people in this area, but this makes QuikTrip look like a random Kum and Go with most of the pumps bagged over. This new Buc-ee’s will occupy 53,000 square feet and have 120 fuel stations. That good old-fashioned American made gasoline for combustion engines. I don’t really know where the gas is made, but it sounds good to say it’s American.
They have cases and cases of jerky, including Bohemian Garlic flavor jerky for my Bohemian readers.
Anyway, this place will have breakfast from 4 a.m. to 11 a.m. and the place will employ 200 people. My Lord this is a great country! You can’t get much more American than lots of gas pumps, beer, breakfast sandwiches and cases and cases of fresh beef jerky to choose from. Come on!
About the time you are standing at your mailbox waiting for this column to be delivered I will be on Landmark Live with Foley. We have vowed to have nothing but cynical, juvenile fun on this episode. Don’t tune in if you’re a Karen wanting to complain about something.
Who named Kum and Go? That seems like a bad name to me, but I am no marketing genius. Don’t worry, I looked it up. Two guys name William Krause and Tony Gentle named it. Iowa guys that apparently don’t have much imagination. It was a play on the phrase “come and go” using the initials of founders Krause and Gentle.Sales of Kum & Go-branded merchandise increased after Johnny Knoxville was seen wearing a Kum & Go T-shirt during a scene in the 2006 movie Jackass Number 2. Carry on.
Remember back in the days when we did not have the internet to search, and you didn’t know some random piece of trivia? You could literally go weeks without knowing something. Some friend might call you a month later and say, “Thurman Munson.” You’d be like “what?,” and they’d say, “Munson was the Yankees’ catcher that broke the 1-1 tie in the American League Championship Series vs the Royals in the bottom of the eighth, remember when we couldn’t figure that out at the bar last month?”
I remember drunken games of Trivial Pursuit that we would argue about answers for days after the game was finished. Them days are over. Internet killed drunken trivia arguments, rest in peace.
In case you were wondering, Doug Bird was the Royals pitcher that gave up the homer. I watched a video of it. George Brett did not look happy.
When Walmart built the Hyper Mart near the old Bannister Mall, my wife and I took a trip there and spent over $300 and it was glorious. That was back before I knew Walmart was trying to murder me with processed foods, but I’ve gotten over that. They had those supersized carts, and we filled that baby to the rim back around 1990. Our son was a toddler, and it was one of the best Saturdays we ever had. Never mind the fact that we probably had to get a payday loan to pay off the prosecutor for $300 check we wrote, it was glorious and I miss those days. I think they bulldozed that place down for Cerner and now they’re bulldozing Cerner or foreclosing or moving out of town, whatever, I’m not going back to Bannister Mall until the retro Hyper Mart comes back.
(Guy Speckman can be reached standing in jerky line at the Springfield Buc-ee’s)