Duncan Hines (36 page)

As Hines-Park Foods was expanding, Duncan Hines's life was taking all sorts of interesting turns. In October 1952 he began appearing regularly on network radio with Roy Park. According to one newspaper account, Hines inaugurated “a five-day-a-week radio show over the Mutual Network,” the purpose of which was “to feature chats about good food, where to find it, and where to spend the night after you have eaten it.”
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Meanwhile, Hines was honored on Broadway, when his persona was acknowledged in
Guys and Dolls
in the song “If I Were a Bell.” He even had a horse race named after him: Omaha's “Duncan Hines purse.” None of
this publicity hurt his syndicated newspaper column which by November 1951 could be read in 100 newspapers around the country with a combined circulation of 20,000,000.
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In the summer of 1953 Adventures in Good Eating, Inc., was overhauled. The change came when Hines finally concluded he was no longer physically able to maintain his hectic pace of life. While he had been looking for a capable person to manage his business, in the end he turned to Roy Park, who had no qualms about operating it. Running it was the least he could do for the person who had helped make him a wealthy man. Of course, because Hines-Park was located in Ithaca, Park could not operate it from Bowling Green. Therefore, on 29 July 1953,
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Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. was relocated to Ithaca, New York, and reconstituted as the Duncan Hines Institute with Roy Park as its president.
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The institute's activities included not only publishing the guidebooks and cookbook but also leasing the famous “Recommended by Duncan Hines” signs.
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In early 1954, six months after Park had staffed his Ithaca organization and assigned them specific duties, Hines relinquished his daily responsibilities. In his hands, Hines was sure, Adventures in Good Eating, Inc. would continue serving the public responsibly. The new books still retained Hines as its “editor-in-chief,” but the older man had almost nothing to do with the final product.
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Park hired his own “dinner detectives” to uncover America's best dining experiences. Each “detective” was given a territory to cover, and as a team they inspected the growing number of listings that kept filling the guidebooks' pages. Their number eventually totaled thirty-seven individuals armed with notebooks that read “Duncan Hines Sent Me.” They did efficient, excellent work, but they were not cut from the same cloth as those that worked with Hines. They were more or less products of man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit-America who did not become giddy, as had their predecessors, over finding a restaurant that served “real” mashed potatoes.
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Nevertheless, with characteristic thoroughness and professionalism, Park spared nothing on his new endeavor. His “conception of what the guidebooks should encompass outstripped anything
Duncan Hines alone had been able to accomplish.”
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Regular purchasers of
Adventures in Good Eating
could detect a difference as soon as they laid eyes upon the new edition. Unlike the plain, bright red books Hines produced, the new version was a multicolored, modern-looking affair that featured a happy family of four dining within the atmospheric confines of luxury and splendor.
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As editor-in-chief, Park wrote the introductions to each guidebook. Toward the end of his remarks, he added that the Duncan Hines Institute's three guidebooks now listed a combined total of over 10,000 eating and sleeping establishments. Park closed with a subject dear to Hines's heart: restaurant cleanliness. “Nothing is more important than cleanliness,” wrote Park. “The sanitary conditions under which food is prepared, cooked and served are important in promoting and safeguarding your health.” In a bow to Hines's influential crusade over the past two decades, he wrote that in recent years, “many laws have been passed in states all over the nation to safeguard the public's health.” As Hines did before him, Park warned readers that “people eating out should give sufficient thought to the kitchen of a public eating place…rather than be guided solely by chromium fronts and attractive interior decorations.”
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Another aspect regular purchasers of
Adventures in Good Eating
noticed about the new book was that it was made of cheaper material. Gone was the sturdy, high quality publication Hines had created. It was now a paperback book, one that could easily fall apart after a year's use. Gone also were the spacious margins large enough to write notes alongside the restaurants in question; now the listings were tightly packed. Also, while guidebook buyers certainly had more entries than ever from which to choose, they were also hard to read. The biggest void in the new editions, however, was the pleasure in reading it. Park replaced Hines's folksy writing style with one that was sparse, business-like, and to the point, mainly because, at a still static price of $1.50 and an ever expanding number of listings, it had to be. While the new guidebooks lacked Hines's special sparkle, blame for the compact look and their curt, terse style should not go to Roy Park; rather, it
should go to Hines. Thanks to him, among other extenuating factors, by 1955 there were so many good restaurants and quality lodgings from which to choose that Park found it increasingly difficult to compress all his information in a single volume.
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While the abundance of fine restaurants and quality lodgings was now Park's headache, not Hines, the famed eater did not slow down too much. At age 74 he had a lot of life left in him, and he put it to good use as the roving ambassador for the Duncan Hines Institute. Radio and television appearances between restaurant meals began to occupy more of his busy schedule. And he was still entertaining to read about. One day in January 1954 Hines told his local newspaper about his problems with the department of agriculture. Possibly because he resided in the countryside, census takers had listed his occupation as that of “farmer.” Because of this unwanted classification, for several years the department had been sending him, in his words, “enough literature on crop raising to satisfy half of Kansas.” Exasperated by this waste of paper, he told the census takers that the only things that grew on his property were weeds.
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Throughout 1954 the reading public saw plenty of Duncan Hines, perhaps more than they had in the previous five years combined. He seemed to be featured either on the cover or within the pages of every major publication in the country. As the year began, he and Clara were the subjects of the 12 January edition of
Look
, the popular, pictorial weekly newsmagazine. In this extensive piece, Hines revealed his choices for what he believed were the ten best motels in America. The genesis for the piece came in the early fall of 1953, when
Look
asked him for help on a piece about motels designed for the traveling public. With the prospect of 40 million vacationing Americans traveling across their nation that summer by car instead of the traditional way—which before the Second World War was by train
—Look
magazine felt that readers needed guidance from a pre-eminent authority. The magazine pointed out that in the coming year a dwindling number of Americans would frequent hotels; they would instead be traversing the far reaches of the countryside in their new automobiles and would be miles away
from large cities—and most hotels. Due to this development, consequently, more Americans than ever would be sleeping in the next best form of accommodation: motels. Times were changing, and that included types of accommodations. What better way to inform the public on where to stay, what to look for in a good motel, and which ones to avoid than to get such information from America's best known traveler, Duncan Hines, whose book,
Lodging for a Night
, listed over 3,000 potential places? Besides, if it was recommended by Duncan Hines, how could American travelers go wrong?

After thinking it over, Hines agreed to let one of the magazine's photographers follow him and his wife around on one of their cross-country tours of America, one that was to take them through 44 states. Hines picked a wide variety of motels for his
Look
article, “ranging from huge highway hotels to cozy overnight bungalows.” His list was based on several factors, including cost, convenience, and hospitality. His ten best motels included: 1)
The El Rancho Grande
in Brownsville, Texas, which had such “luxuries as a swimming pool and room service.” Hines also liked the fact that “warm food and cool beverages [were] delivered by bicycle.” 2)
The Fort Humboldt Motel
in Eureka, California featured “home-like cottages and a folksy hospitality that includes furnishing the guests with radios.” 3)
The Guest Ranch
in Cheyenne, Wyoming was an attractive, Western-styled motel that offered “private sitting porches where its guests” could “chat and relax.” 4) Then there was
The Key
in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hines liked this “million-dollar motor hotel” because it represented “the combined merits of a downtown city hotel and the economical conveniences and atmosphere of a country motel.” 5)
The Yankee Traveler
in Plymouth, Massachusetts was a “contemporary Cape Cod-style motel” giving motorists in New England an opportunity to experience a chance to relax “in the true traditional hospitality of the early New England inns.” 6)
Bacon's-by-the-Sea
in Fort Walton Beach, Florida was a “rustic motor inn” located on the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico; one of its luxuries was a motorboat. 7)
Tourinns
in Wilmington, Delaware was an “ultramodern motel”
that provided “living-room-type bedrooms” and even offered a special quarters for pets. 8)
Desert Caravan Inn
in Spokane, Washington was a “modern motor hotel…built in the midst of picturesque pines.” 9)
The El Rancho
motel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina was an “extensively landscaped motel” which faced 7 miles of beach and provided “women guests with gardenias in season.” 10)
The Franciscan Motor Hotel
on North Highland Avenue in Hollywood, California had “a Hollywood swimming pool, with service and atmosphere to match.”

Hines reminded his readers of how far the motel industry had come in two short decades. “In less than 20 years, a few scattered roadside cabins have multiplied to more than 40,000 motor courts…. Each year, about 2,000 new ones happily hang out their gleaming ‘no vacancy' signs.” The reason for their growth and the source of their popularity with tourists, said Hines, was not difficult to understand. “Motels, built on main highways, are easily accessible without the nuisance of city traffic. Cars parked conveniently near lodgings save bothersome trips for extra baggage and forgotten items. With no plush lobbies to dress up for, they stress informality.” Another reason they were popular, particularly with adults traveling with children, was that they were affordable. Hines wrote, “As a rule, motels are less expensive than hotels because there is little or no tipping involved. However, as motel prices edge upward, more and more of them are relying on such sure-fire tourist attractions as swimming pools, air-conditioning, free television, children's playgrounds and running ice water to lure and lull the weary traveler.”

Hines provided
Look's
readers with updated instructions on how to pick a good motel. One tip was that “a neat and tidy outside appearance… [was] the best indication of clean rooms inside.” He asked readers to note if the lawn and shrubbery had been cut, if the driveway was neat, and if the paint was fresh. Before checking in, he advised travelers to look “around to see if it is in a quiet location—far enough from the highway, railroads and noisy night spots—to enable” one to have a quiet rest. If the motel passed this test, there next came another barrier, the motel receptionist. A
good indicator of whether a motel was worth staying in could be found in the behavior of the person at the reception desk. First impressions in any situation always the most important, and Hines pointed out how receptionists make or break a motel's business. “A courteous, pleasant receptionist,” he wrote, “is an important indication that your stay will be a pleasant one. Don't hesitate to ask to see the room before signing the register. One glance at the room and its furnishings will tell more than the lengthiest assurances from the desk clerk.”

If the receptionist hesitated, Hines's advice was to drive on. But if the receptionist showed a potential guest the room, Hines advised his readers to put it to the final—and ultimate—test: the inspection. Hines advised readers to check the furniture for dust, to inspect the bed sheets for cleanliness, to see if the bedsprings were adequate, and to make sure there were “plenty of good-sized towels” in the bathroom. He also suggested that one should not walk out of the room before being perfectly satisfied that plenty of hot and cold water was instantly available. He advised readers to check the “heating, ventilation and lighting facilities.” Even windows had to be checked. “A screened window that can be raised and lowered easily,” he wrote, “is always desirable—sometimes even with air conditioning.” Rooms, he said, should also have “good-sized closets, extra hooks in the bathroom, [and] sufficient drawers.” All, he insisted, were “assets of a better room.” Lastly, there was the subject of safety. “Safety measures,” he wrote, “such as inside locks on room doors, night watchmen and lights [that are] kept on all night are important for adequate protection.” Nothing, it seemed, escaped his attention. These were his standards and, he implied, they should be his readers' as well.

Finally, Hines could not pass up a chance to comment on those motels which had dining facilities. If the food looked and smelled good, he said, proceed further. He informed his readers to “use your eyes for such small details as clean catsup bottles and covered sugar bowls. They often reveal kitchen conditions.” Hines concluded the
Look
article by instructing his readers in the ways of becoming “a good motel guest.” To do that, Hines wrote, “follow
the four rules of the road—courtesy, caution, compliance and common sense.” He had traveled in excess of 2 million miles, he said, and so far those rules had worked for him magnificently.
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