Ducklings Invade a Chicken House

Though it is 2 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, there are 47 people waiting ahead of me to get into Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott’s Berry Farm. I know this because the line is hardly moving and, to pass the time, I’ve just done a head count. Standing and waiting, I’m also getting to know my neighbors. The group in front of me--Mom, Dad and five kids, all from Kentucky--have invited me to eat with them.

“Y’all would be more than welcome to sit down with us, if ya don’t mind these here knucklehead kids,” says the Kentucky mom, giving a noogie to a pudgy boy of 12 or 13 with a buzz cut. Her name is Florence, her husband’s name is Mitchell, and the kid’s names are . . Shoot. I forget.

She said them too quickly and they all sounded alike. Something like Wade, Wally, Wanda, Winona and Willy. Anyway, they’re all cute as a bug’s ear, dressed in identical red shorts and yellow T-shirts as they are (“Makes it easier to find them in a crowd,” Florence says). They feel bad for me because when the hostess came down the line wanting to know how many in my party, I somewhat sheepishly said “One.”

“How many?”

“Just one.” I held up my index finger and gave her an apologetic smile. There are parties of five and parties of three and even a party of 13 in front of me, but I am the only party of one (which makes me wonder if I can even be considered a party).

That’s when the family from Kentucky asked me to eat with them.

I thank Florence and Mitchell for their invitation but decline. Not giving up, Florence asks me if, perhaps, the rest of my family is going to join me later.

“Nope,” I tell her, smiling, as the line moves forward about three feet. “I’m on my own today. My family didn’t want to come.”

“You’re kiddin’!” Florence says, shocked. “Why not?”

Considering where we are, I have to sort of whisper my answer: “They don’t like Southern-fried chicken.” Florence’s eyes get big as saucers in her flushed red face. It is hot and humid out, and Florence’s curly red hair is sticking to her neck and forehead. She fans herself with a folded map of the amusement park. Her husband, a beefy man wearing a tank top, looks away from the two of us, as if he has just heard something unsavory.

“Oh, man,” he mumbles, trying to console me. “Don’t like fried chicken?”

I brought my wife, Jan, to eat here once, I tell them. “We were on our honeymoon.”

Florence goes, “Ahhh, isn’t that cute?”

I took her to Knott’s Berry Farm because I grew up nearby and came here a lot as a kid.

“I made a big deal out of Cordelia Knott’s famous fried chicken, which was a mistake on my part,” I tell them. “I shouldn’t have said anything about it, one way or the other. Instead, I kept telling her to go easy on the funnel cakes and back off that sarsaparilla because she needed to save room for Mrs. Knott’s fried chicken. As I remember it, we had to wait about an hour for a table and the whole time I was probably telling Jan one stupid story after another about the place: How this was where we always went on Mother’s Day when I was a kid, and how afterward, we would go to this glass shop next door and my dad would buy my mom a hand-blown glass clown, which my mom collected.”

“Glass clowns?” Mitchell asks.

“Yep.”

“For Mother’s Day?” Florence asks.

“Well, sometimes for her birthday too. And Christmas.”

“What happened to them?”

“My sister got them when my mom died. All 27 of them, including the two that broke.”

Florence and Mitchell nod their heads slowly. “But your wife, she didn’t like the chicken here?” Florence asks, wanting to change the subject.

It wasn’t so much the chicken, I tell her.

“What then?”

Well, some people appreciate cherry rhubarb as an appetizer and some people don’t. Jan fell into the latter category. For that matter, she wasn’t too keen on the cabbage seasoned with ham or the mashed potatoes with country gravy. She liked the boysenberry pie, though. I remember that.

“But coming here is like home for you then, isn’t it?” Florence asks.

“It is,” I tell her. “When I think of Mrs. Knott’s fried-chicken dinners, I think of my mother.”

“Ahhh,” says Florence, patting me on the back. “Isn’t that sweet? She was a good cook, your mom?”

Nope, I tell her. She couldn’t cook worth beans. Oh, she knew her way around chipped beef on toast all right, and she could make a mean spaghetti casserole (first you make spaghetti with meatballs, then you put it in a casserole dish, top it with potato chips and Velveeta, then bake it in the oven. Yum.)

“But fried chicken was a mystery to her. She either burned it or it came out all soggy and greasy. Which is why we ate here so often. My daddy loved Southern-fried chicken. And, I don’t know why, but he always credited Mom with the meal when we came here. ‘Terrific chicken, Joannie,’ he’d say, giving her a kiss on the cheek.”

We are now at the front of the line. The hostess smiles at the family from Kentucky and asks, “Ready?” The kids, looking like red-and-yellow ducks, waddle off with Mitchell behind them. Florence hangs back for a minute. “Why don’t you come sit down with us?” she asks, giving me a smile. “Please?”

“Only if I can buy the first round of sarsaparilla,” I tell her.

“You’re on.”

At the table, I sit between the two youngest red-and-yellow ducks, both of whom surreptitiously give me their cherry rhubarb appetizers when their parents aren’t looking. I eat it all.

Sunday-Thursday, 7 a.m.-8:30 p.m.; Friday, 7 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday, 7 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

David Lansing’s column is published on Fridays in Orange County Calendar. His e-mail address is occalendar@latimes.com.