Health kick includes annual hot dog holiday

Bob loves hot dogs.

In a moment, Bob will eat his first hot dog of the year. A few moments later, he will eat his last dog until next December.

When he eats those dogs, 66-year-old Bob Latimer will be taking a bite for all the people who have given up something for their health. It could be doughnuts or cigarettes, french fries or fried chicken, beer, liquor, bread, shellfish, butter, tacos, cheeseburgers or cream cheese.

Bob used to come here, to Doug’s Hot Dogs in Ocean View, three times a week to eat dogs. He likes them "the regular way," as he puts it, the tough-skinned Hormel ones slathered in mustard, onions and chili.

In 1993, Bob had heart bypass surgery. His doctor said his veins looked like they’d been pumped full of lard that had thickened and froze.

"That didn’t come from just the hot dogs," said Bob, defending his favorite food. "It came from all the other bad stuff I had eaten."

The doctors cleaned Bob’s pipes, put him on a ventilator and stuck him on a healthful routine. They also told him that unless he wanted to come back, he’d have to give up his beloved dogs.

He thought of that ventilator, and he quit just like that.

Except for once a year.

Every December, Bob invites his friends and family to join him at Doug’s. They eat all the potato chips, drink all the sodas and stuff down all the hot dogs they want. It’s on Bob.

On that one day, Bob eats all the hot dogs he wants.

Bob’s friends started walking through the door of Doug’s Hot Dogs just before noon Friday.

His friend Fred Walker was there early. Walker quit cigarettes in 1974, and, lately, raw oysters. His friend Paul Sykes had to give up shellfish. Last year, his friend Rich White stopped eating bread, including cakes, pies, even the croutons on his salads.

Bob greeted them all at the door. "How ya doing?" a woman asked. "Happy Health Day."

Two women drove from Richmond for Bob’s eighth annual hot dog day - his sister-in-law and mother-in-law. They were dressed as hot dogs.

By 12:15, Bob’s friends and some Doug’s regulars poured through the door of the tiny hot dog stand. Fifteen, then 20, then 35 people jammed the place.

"Let me get one of Bob’s hot dogs," a man told one of the cooks. "Mustard, onions and chili."

By 12:30, nearly everybody was munching dogs, except for Bob. It’s as though he knew: the sooner he started, the sooner he’d be done, for 12 months.

Bob doesn’t have to be that strict. His doctor told him he could eat hot dogs once a month. But he knows how that would go:

"I’ll just have them in June and December," he’d tell himself.

"Then, why not one every quarter?"

Pretty soon, he’d be back to three times a week.

Ten minutes later, people were leaving and thanking Bob. Bob was still urging others to eat, as if he gets a charge out of hot dogs being eaten even if he’s not the one doing it.

"Have some more, eat some more," Bob chided one man.

Have you had one today, someone asked?

"I’m going to," Bob said, "in a minute."

Bob has loved hot dogs as long as he can remember.

He grew up in Norfolk, near a hole-in-the-wall hot dog stand at 25th Street and Colley Avenue. Dogs there cost a nickel.

He’d love to go to Ocean View Park, where the hot dogs were a dime. His dad hated that.

"Boy, we’re not buying any hot dog for 10 cents when you can get one across the street for a nickel," he’d tell Bob.

"Of course, we didn’t go get one for a nickel," Bob said.

Bob moved to Ocean View 20 years ago, and it took him about five minutes to find Doug’s. Bob always favored dogs from hot dog stands, instead of the ones cooked at home. There’s just something about the hot dog stand kind, with the steamed buns.

"OK," Bob announced at 12:45, "I’m going to eat now."

He stepped to the counter.

"I’ll have two all the way, and a Diet Pepsi."

The woman pulled out a warm bun, slid on a dog, then the mustard, then the onions, then the chili. Only the dog’s tips poked through the fixings.

This was the true celebration, a friend said, when Bob takes his first bite and you know all of life is good.

Bob squirted some extra mustard on top of the chili. He held the hot dog up to his face and bit. He looked up.

"Just as good as they ever were."

On his second bite, he got a big mouthful. A drop of extra mustard hung on his lip.

"It gets better," Bob said.

He downed those two dogs, ordered a third, and downed that one.

I thought you only wanted two? someone said.

"No, I eat as many as I want this one day," Bob said. "Unfortunately, I can only eat three."

Too bad, because tomorrow it’s back to his normal lunch:

Cottage cheese and an orange.

Dog gone!

Lon Wagner, a feature writer at The Virginian-Pilot, began his journalism career in Lewes, Del., at a prestigious weekly paper called The Whale (64 pages, four writers, no news wires, go get 'em.) Since then, he's worked at four dailies and attracted weirdness at all of them. He has profiled a moonshiner, covered a minister who preached (and practiced) bigamy and written a poem about a baseball fan catching a foul ball. Lon curates The Pilot's "Wall of Shame," a display of newspaper screw-ups. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of Delaware. He later mastered in applied linguistics (don't ask) while on a Rotary Fellowship in Edinburgh, Scotland. He lives in Norfolk with his wife of four years and his black Labrador of 15 years.