McCook Daily Gazette: Local News: Hot Diggity Dog -- Florida food vendor recalls wartime stop at McCook canteen with gratitude (11/28/08)

George Farrell, proprietor of the "Hot Diggity Dog" hotdog stand in Bunnell, Fla., points to the Nebraska prestige license plate that he incorporated into his menu board. Farrell was on a troop train that stopped in McCook in 1945, and remembers still the hospitality of women, including some "Gold Star" mothers, who served the soldiers cookies, cake and coffee.
(Courtesy photo)

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BUNNELL, Fla. -- When former Lincoln-Omaha resident Richard Johnson, of Ormond Beach, Fla., stopped for a "Hot Diggity Dog" hotdog in Bunnell, Fla., he discovered a fellow Floridian with Nebraska ties -- a man, Johnson said, who made him feel proud.

Johnson and George Farrell, the proprietor of the hotdog stand, struck up a conversation when Johnson spotted the Nebraska prestige license plate that Farrell had incorporated into his menu board.

Farrell said that another Nebraskan, a passing motorist, had given him the license plate after Farrell told him that he had been on a troop train that stopped in McCook in 1945, as he was en route from a Naval training base in Virginia to San Francisco during his service in World War II.

Farrell told the motorist, and Johnson later, that a group of women at the depot in McCook served the soldiers coffee, cookies and cake. Several of the women were "Gold Star" mothers, he said. Johnson said in letters to the McCook Area Chamber of Commerce and to the Gazette, "That caught my attention and made me proud to be an American, and from Nebraska."

Johnson wrote, "This gentleman represents the best of his generation, and wishes to express his appreciation for the hospitality and kindness of the people of McCook, Nebraska, to the servicemen on troop trains that passed through and stopped over in McCook."

Johnson writes that Farrell was assigned to a light cruiser for service in the Pacific Theater. Later he served on the mine sweeper AMS 32 during the Korean Conflict. Johnson writes about Farrell, "He is now 'in service' to the travelers to Florida and serves a 'Hot Diggity Dog'."

Farrell asked Johnson to express his sincere, if belated, "thank you" to the good people of Nebraska and "especially to those of you in McCook, if I should visit your town when I go back to Nebraska. Since it may be some time before I get back ..." Johnson chose to write instead.