Yippee-FRY-Yay!

Though hardly a valuable collector's item,
yet, this is still a pretty cool little memento.

Last year at this time, my stepson, wife and I travelled to Washington, D.C., and Boston to make some college visits. While he ultimately decide to go elsewhere (Columbia), we did greatly enjoy our time touring around the sites and monuments each city had to offer. While cleaning out some shelves in my office today, I came across an odd "memento" that had been stashed away from our road trip: a Roy Rogers Round Up French fry holster.

Because Roy Rogers Restaurants are incredibly rare in upstate New York, relegated to only a few thruway food courts, I'd had no prior experience with fries packed into a holster. While it certainly did not seem very functional beyond its primary purpose, and though I quickly thought better of my initial inclination to strap the holster to my belt, I did like the Western flair of the packaging.

On the History Guffaw website, I also found the Rogers specific term "holster fries" that appropriately captures the product-packaging synergy of the Rogers fries. Resembling a child's toy holster, with details right down to rivets and stitching (befitting a clear allusion to the popular Roy Rogers Flash-Draw Holster outfits such as the one seen here from the 1940s), the fry holster itself definitely offers a visual reminder of yesteryear. Perhaps because, as one blog I came across suggested, this was the manner in which the restaurant's namesake ate his own french fries, directly from a holster, this gimmick seems to have stuck.

One has to wonder though, with the politicized nature of gun ownership and perceived influence of "violent" first and third person shooters (video games), how much longer Roy Rogers' will pack their fried taters this way. Despite the fact that this particular holster is only intended for use as a french fries delivery system (rather than a firearm), clocking in at 546 calories does seem to suggest the contents therein may pack a strong dietary wallop and, if eaten in large amounts, could also be fatal!