The New York Post reports that a 45-year-old Long Island woman was arrested last week for selling hot dogs and handjobs out of a camper on the side of the road. It was the second time Catherine Scalia had been arrested for selling hot dogs and handjobs out of a camper on the side of the road.The first instance occurred in 2004, after which, Scalia's son says, she served a four-year stint in jail for prostitution.The problem is, when you find something you're good at and passionate about, it can be a challenge to walk away from it.Cops discovered Scalia was back up to her old tricks (specifically: turning them) after neighbors complained she was handing out business cards advertising strip sessions, a topless cleaning service, and general bachelor party miscellanea alongside her hotdogs.The whistle-blowing residents were very judgey about the whole thing to the New York Post:"In the summertime she's out in her bra and panties," said nauseated neighbor Jem Velasco. "She's filthy, she's dirty.

How could men take that?"Far more nauseating than the idea of a friendly lady hanging out in her underwear is the fact that Scalia did not have a permit for selling hotdogs out a camper in the first place.I repeat: neither the hotdogs nor the (ostensibly portable?) brothel in which they were prepared were held to rigorous health code standards.Following her arrest in 2004, Scalia told The Post she had offered the undercover officer who busted her not sex, but, rather, a flash of her breasts."I mean, what's wrong with indecent exposure? Showing your chest - how could that be prostitution?Just a little "Hey, how ya doin', thanks for buyin' a hot dog from my camper on the side of the road."Scalia also claimed she had been forced to make that offer in the first place because the officer had stopped by on "a bad hot dog day":"What do you want? It was a bad hot dog day. I sold maybe $5 worth of hot dogs that day."According to the Nassau County Police department, last Thursday Scalia sold another undercover cop two hotdogs and water for $5 before performing a striptease for $100.Police claim she then "agreed to manually stimulate him for an additional $50," proving that her hand jobs are as competitively priced as her hot dogs.

Scalia has remained in police custody since her arrest, after her family declined to put up $2000 to spring her.A very bad hot dog day indeed.[New York Post // Image by Dianna McDougall, Source Photo via Shutterstock]On fall days like these, Jeanne Summa-Becvar used to wait for the kids to get off school so they could ride their bikes to her family’s hot dog truck in Brentwood. Her father, the namesake of Charlie’s Hot Dogs, and mother were there, as was the smell of the Sabretts steaming, and the onion sauce that made the family famous. Now, on almost every Saturday since June, she’s at the Islip Farmers Market selling those famous onions in 16-ounce jars to community members they brought together for 43 years. The Charlie’s faithful come steadily, and the memories still bowl over Summa-Becvar, who closed the truck in 2006. One Saturday, a teacher remembers how he used to reward his kids for good grades with the promise of hot dogs. A few weeks later, within two hours, it’s a man whose father took him to Charlie’s as a boy, a woman who craved the franks during her pregnancy, and a father whose son cried out for a Charlie’s T-shirt as a keepsake after moving to New Orleans.

The memories so enchant Summa-Becvar that her two daughters, the third generation of the family raised on the truck, tease her about her familiar trance at the farmers market. “I love it — I thrive on it,” she says. “It still, to this day, amazes me, its impact on so many people. You wish you could bring that back.” Before food trucks got hip, Charlie’s — parked in front of the Summas’ home on Spur Drive North — was a community gathering place. Greater Orlando Weight Loss(Grace’s had the East End; How To Hang A Mirror CollageCharlie’s swaddled the Brentwood/Islip area.) Second Hand Wooden Window ShuttersMaybe the hot dogs, steamed in bouillon, and the onions, bathed in a slightly sweet, generously spiced sauce, brought customers in.

But they came back for Charlie and his wife Rose, the faces of the business. If Rose saw a group of kids having the hot dogs, she’d always hand them a bag of chips, too. Charlie used to flirt with customers endearingly. “Why, don’t you look beauuuutiful today.” An uncountable number of families made a tradition of Charlie’s, including the former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, who started going at age 5 and brought the Food Network there for an episode on players’ favorite restaurants. An uncountable number of families made a tradition of Charlie’s, including the former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason. “My dad used to take me to this place after Little League games and before Little League games,” he says in the episode as he drives over. “And it was like a thing that he and I always did together.” Later, just before biting into a Charlie dog, he adds, “I’m sure there are people in other cities that think that they have the best hot dog, but this is my choice, right here.”

Over the years, Charlie’s attracted not just families but generations; seeing customers who’d come as kids bring their children years later always touched Summa-Becvar’s sister, Lorraine May. “That’s family,” May says. “That matters, doesn’t it?” Summa-Becvar worried she lost a generation during the nine-year absence. Old fans remembered, though, and some even strove to buoy the tradition in their own way. During the dark years, Suzanne Cruz, who grew up with Charlie’s in the ‘70s and even stuck with it — just onions and bun — during a quasi-vegetarian phase, tested her own recipes at home. She and her sons were the first customers on line, three hours early, when Summa-Becvar brought Charlie’s back for one day in 2013, and again at the Islip Main Street Fair in June. “I know it sounds crazy, because at the end of the day it’s onions, but there are so few things you had growing up,” Cruz says. The strength of that nostalgia has braced Summa-Becvar and her husband of 33 years, Glenn, as they’ve pulled through the trials of being first-time business owners and stewards of the family legacy.

In April, after she was laid off, they started selling the onions just to close friends and the most devoted old customers, including Joanne Beatty, who was raised on Charlie’s and did the same for her children. Beatty’s son Devin picked up trash as a boy at the truck in exchange for hot dogs and came back for lunch three times a week after graduating high school. When he was killed by a drunk driver in 2005, Summa-Becvar and her sister placed his order at the crash site every day for a week and re-named the No. 2 special the “Dev special.” Beatty has ordered multiple jars a week since April and given them to all the family and friends she can think of. “‘Your whole family, you’ve got them all coming to me,’” she remembers Summa-Becvar telling her. “I said, ‘Of course I do. I don’t forget what you did for my son.’” Like her customers, Summa-Becvar recognizes the debt she owes to her past — one she repays by selling her parents’ onions, and the Charlie’s faithful repay by eating them again — is one she’ll never finish paying off.