The obverse celebrates a building that used to fascinate us as kids in the mid-‘60s. It spanned both lanes of I-44 in Oklahoma (which is a modern counterpart of old Route 66). Whizzing beneath it in a car at 80+ mph was always a big event for us, little kids that we were. (We were usually in the baby-blue ’59 Cadillac with the enormous tailfins, bought used about 1964.)
All that was long before the building became a McDonalds’s. Which wasn’t a bad thing; the building had fallen on hard times and I thought they’d tear it down for sure. (For me the permanently out-of-service escalators were especially symbolic—along with the big sun-blocking louvers seemingly stuck in their final position.)
But the popular appeal of McDonald’s rescued it. The building—now thoroughly remodeled—can still (2016) be seen straddling I-44 northeast of Tulsa at N36o37’23.86”, W95o08’52.44”.
There were over a half-billion (1/2-milliarde) 2000d Massachusetts quarters struck, so the stretching of a few of them doesn’t do any appreciable harm to the supply.
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