At the time my being so young I could not grasp the business concept. The one point I heard was that there would be some of that new soft serve ice cream coming to our small town. As someone about 12 years old that was something about which to get excited. What my father Bonner Hugh Jones and Arnold Mobley were discussing in our little living room on Hargett Street in Richlands was the future of our home town to be precise. You see my father and Arnold Mobley were life long friends living just down the street from each other, both were visionaries and both wanted Richlands to grow.
Mr. Mobley was building homes in town and had an idea to open a Tastee Freeze on the then just over a decade old Highway 24/258 where lots of cars were starting to drive by who could buy his ice cream and burgers. Yes Richlanders believe it or not Highway 24/258 has not been here forever. There was a time the highway went right down Hargett Street and then turned at Ed Whaley's old grocery store and headed back out Wilmington Street towards Jacksonville. Then the state build one of those new "bypasses" that went around the downtowns and made trips easier for those new cars everyone was buying in the post war years. That present route of 258/24 in Richlands was completed in the early 1950's and my father had once owned a small part of the land the new highway had been built on since that was part of his farm inherited from his father.
My father had ideas too. He built a Texaco station on the highway that after the reroute cut through his land in the early 1960's which is now the Hess convenience store and eventually sold the land across the street to a local bank called Bank of North Carolina that is now PNC Bank. "Mr. Arnold" as many of his friends knew him was known as the best home builder in the area and for some time my family was considering having him build us a home if we could find some land to do so around Richlands. That evening in our living room Arnold told my father he was looking at building a Tastee Freeze I expect because my father had discussed earlier bringing a Hardees to town and Arnold was looking to see if my father was still looking into Hardees. The Hardees idea had gave way to the Texaco and thus the Tastee Freeze was now a go since there would be no direct competition other than the then local favorite the Toot and Tell It.
So the Tastee Freeze was built around 1966 and it as expected was a big deal in our small town. The first building was nothing more than a dirt and gravel lot where cars would pull up, walk up to the window, get your food and go back to the car. Later on inside seating was added on both sides of the little food prep building, and it seemed almost every few years afterward Arnold would add to the original structure new inside seating and a larger kitchen area. At some point along the way the Tastee Freeze franchise was dropped and the place renamed Arnolds Family Restaurant. Over the decades I doubt there is anyone associated with Richlands who had not dined on a burger from the restaurant. For years it was the place students would gather after ball games and the first stop after Sunday night church services for a soft dip ice cream cone. Arnolds would live on long after the Toot and Tell It closed. Arnolds eventually became an institution along the highway as people would stop for his fried chicken and home cooked food many on their way to the beach. I was proud when people I knew from other places told me about stopping at Arnolds when I told them I was from Richlands. The small town was blessed to have Arnold Mobley among it's citizens for many years.
There was a time I almost went to work full time for Arnold Mobley. Arnold called my father one day and told him to ask me to come by and see him next time I was in town to visit. I had left Richlands in the mid 1970's for employment but would visit my father and mother at the time almost every weekend. Upon coming home one weekend my father told me to ride out and talk to Arnold since he had called and asked for me. I did just that not knowing what Arnold wanted. When I got there Arnold told me he wanted me to come to work for him. Now I had helped Arnold some years past when I was younger doing unskilled labor part time at the Tastee Freeze. Arnold told me he wanted me to be his cashier and would pay me quite well. That pay $300 per week was a princely sum back then and a good bit more than I was making at the time. I frankly asked Arnold why he would pay me so much and his answer was quite simple. He said he knew me, he knew my family and upbringing and knew I would not steal from him. That he was having issues with theft and that I would literally pay for myself by stopping the theft because I was honest. After some consideration I rejected the offer because I thought at the time I had a bright future career in newspapers. Today I consider that offer and the reason the most honoring offer for work I ever got because of his trust in me from a man I greatly admired. Of course as a older man now one gets to think what if.
I got the news this week that Arnolds was closing. Supposedly his daughter has decided to call it quits for whatever reason. As one gets older you learn that nothing lasts forever, but losing places like Arnolds is like losing a piece of yourself, a piece of your life, and even more a piece of your history you can go back to and remember the good times. I will miss the Big A burger and standing in the cafeteria line talking to people from Richlands. I will miss remembering going to Arnolds with my father for Saturday lunch. For those of us who grew up in Richlands and those who live there now this is like a death in the family, immediate close family, and there seems to be the need to have a funeral. I suppose that is what the is happening this Saturday when most will gather at the restaurant to share memories and say goodbye. Yes I suppose this is almost a religious experience.
Maybe this is the price of progress, but I do not like it. On the other hand my father and Mr. Arnold would be pleased and proud of the growth Richlands, their little hometown, is experiencing the last few years which is what they were planning in that living room on Hargett Street now almost half a century ago.
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