CityView Magazine

CityViewNC.com | 9 afflicted person. We knew this would be the case, so on the appointed day, my role was to occupy those hours with Mom in places of total familiarity. John Rowell and I grew up together at First Presbyterian, graduated together from Terry Sanford High School, and re- main close friends today. Coincidentally, he was home visiting his mother when this avalanche of change cascaded onto our family. I asked John to meet Mom and me for lunch in the most familiar of set- tings. We met at e Hamont Grill. Only John and I knew that this was in some ways Mom's "last supper." I ate my breaded veal cutlet. Mom talked lovingly in full recog- nition of John. And Pete came by our table for pleasantries. In the turmoil of a life, all was right with the world for one unmolest- ed hour at e Hamont Grill. On April 9, 2016, I came home from hunting on the opening morning of tur- key season. Aer pouring me a coffee, my wife braced me for bad news and said, "e Hamont Grill was destroyed by fire last night." My first thought was an effort at empathy for Mr. Pete. It was a failed at- tempt. I will never fully be able to under- stand the connection he had to a business where he spent the majority of his life. Pete Skenteris opened up to the press in heart-breaking fashion saying that his life had mostly come and mostly gone in that burned-out building. He said that his sons could re-build if they wanted to, but he was long in years and in the aermath of that terrible fire, perhaps he was under- standably short on enthusiasm. I do not know what will happen to that real estate. I hope it becomes another res- taurant with a multi-colored, uniquely spelled sign that is not in keeping with the latest City sign ordinance, and that when the variance permit to allow that sign is requested in front of City Council, that everyone who reads this and everyone who ever ate a two-piece cherry tomato salad turns out to support it. Whatever happens, though, there is no taking away the living of so many lives for sixty years in e Hamont Grill. Whatever happens next, I know that Pete Skenteris will have a say in the outcome. You see, Mr. Pete is more than a proprietor of a restau- rant. He is a facilitator of the living of life. Fire can burn away his booths, but watch and see...that burn will not extin- guish his fire.. CV FDIC INSURED

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