My coming-of-age supernatural thriller, Revolutionary Ghosts, is set in 1976. The tale’s hero, an Ohio teenager named Steve Wagner, has a summer job at McDonald’s.
One of the recurring jokes in the book surrounds the Arctic Orange Shake, which McDonald’s did indeed introduce in the summer of 1976.
I was 8 years old that summer. The Arctic Orange Shake was one of my favorite refreshments. (It was soon to be surpassed by the Orange Julius, though—another orange-flavored, sugar-laden concoction from the 1970s.)
Whenever I think of the Arctic Orange Shake, I’m transported back in time to the summer of ’76.