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A day at Greenfield Village left me and two lifelong friends marveling over times in our lives. In our 60s, seeing one or two museum pieces that served our parents and grandparents as practical home appliances during our boyhoods triggered a few reflective laughs and remembrances. They thought I should share mine with you:
The pork chop there was to die for: An Italian restaurateur I worked for years ago in Scottsdale, who I jokingly rename “Luigi Lamentini,” taught me what it can take at times to prevent unforeseen problems that arise during service from ruining an otherwise lovely evening for one’s customers.
Luigi was called upon to prevent a potential stampede from his place one night when a 94-year-old gentleman celebrating his birthday with two daughters slumped at the table two minutes after polishing off what turned out to be his last meal. My buddy, Steve, waiting on that table, hid horrified in the kitchen after alerting Luigi to the situation. What happened next was nothing short of miraculous.
“Get back in the dining room,” Luigi poked his head through the kitchen door, commanding us calmly under such circumstances. “Don’t say anything. Everything’s fine.” We followed orders. Oddly enough, a round of table touches confirmed that no one else had a clue a customer turned cadaver was in our midst. Wading back over toward where the deceased was seated, I saw Luigi standing with his hand on the man’s shoulder, talking to the guy’s daughters on either side of him as though the four of them were just discussing dinner. I couldn’t imagine the conversation. After noticing us standing and gawking, Luigi motioned Steve over while leering at me to stop staring. I slunk away. Steve found me a minute later.
“You know what he said, Bobby?” Steve told me stone-faced. “Please take the plate. He’s finished. Luig’s playing it cool, like nothing!” Steve was right. Somehow, Luigi convinced the two daughters to sit calmly through their father’s passing like it was nothing unnatural. Yes, paramedics came, eventually; an hour later, after the dining room emptied out. Once we locked-up, Luigi explained what he did.
“He was a good a customer for years,” Luigi lamented in his thick, Florentine accent. “His daughters understand. It was just time. They knew. No need to cause panic and cost me a night’s business. They were nice about it.”
This story remains my gold standard for sharing the essence of what it takes to succeed in the sometimes utterly insane enterprise of restaurateuring. Luigi summed it up when Steve cleared that last pork chop plate:
“Look on bright side. He died happy. Ate the whole thing.”
Here lies Uncle Johnny: My ex-wife’s uncle was a drinker. It cost him in the end, yet that end came years after the evening we first got a call that he’d passed.
I was a newlywed in my mid-20s that night. Wifey and I were woken up by the phone in the wee hours. On the other end, I heard my mother-in-law’s frantic, muddled voice. As next of kin, she’d just been notified that her brother had been found unresponsive a few miles from our apartment. Out of town at the time, she begged Wifey and me to rush to the scene. We arrived to find Johnny’s truck with the driver’s side door flung open in — of all places — the drive-thru window of a Jack in the Box. Before I had time to even begin to wrap my head around how fast food could have killed her favorite uncle, Wifey pointed off to the side and cried, “There he is!”
And there he was: standing drunk as a skunk, answering to a police officer.
“You’re lying to me here, John,” was what I heard the policeman say as I parked.
“Nope. Sssober azza’ zhudge.” Johnny insisted. It was the ’80s. Things were different. The officer then offered an option offenders these days aren’t afforded, and rightly so.
“Here’s what I’m gonna’ do. I’m going to drive that truck of yours over here, then you’re going to crawl inside and sleep it off. I’m on patrol all night. I’ll be back around. You try to drive off, I’ll track you down and take you to jail, understood?”
“Sssure.” Johnny promised, lout’s honor.
“Restaurant called in a customer losing consciousness,” the officer turned, explaining the situation to me.
“I’ll take his keys,” Wifey committed.
“Why don’t you just drive him home?” Officer asked.
“Nope, he can sleep in his truck until morning.” She shot back, mad as hell.
Early next morning, phone rings again. I answer. It’s Johnny.
“Can you or Marti pick me up? Car broke down late last night. Parked it. Fell asleep. Can’t find my keys.”
Wifey and I dozed back off. An hour later, we showered before heading back. Picking up Johnny, he seemed black-out oblivious to his having seen us just hours earlier. Wifey said she was hungry, insisting we drive thru Jack in the Box for breakfast. Grabbing our order, she dropped Johnny’s keys into his lap.
“Any of this coming back yet?” She let him have it. It took him another minute before his face turned beet-redder than usual.
“Well, that explains all the groceries in my truck this morning,” he blushed. “The cop parked next to me. I walked across the street and spent $100 shopping in the convenience store, to show him I wasn’t dumb.”
Yeah, drunks are smart that way, at least.
And this guy lives on forever: While setting tables as a 15-year-old busboy at Dearborn Country Club (1977), somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said “Howdy there, sonny!” in a voice that sounded instantly familiar and magical. It belonged to Ray Bolger, the man who played Scarecrow in MGM’s 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz. Just dressed for dinner there that night, he decided to make my day by addressing me in character he immortalized; showing some heart and leaving me a memory of a lifetime.
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