CityView Magazine

8 | May/June 2016 McFadyen's Musings BY BILL MCFADYEN Facilitator of Living Life B ill McQueen was the brother of my maternal grandfather. To me, he was just Uncle Bill. He claimed me as his name- sake. He died when I was 10. He and his wife, Louise, lived at 105 Westmont Drive. When my cogni- tive faculties have completely failed, I am pretty sure I will still remember that street address. My older brother and I would spend the night with Uncil Bill and Wezy. We went to see John Wayne movies. We listened to Nat King Cole on the 8-track in the Buick. We played Crazy 8's and identi- fied birds in the feeder. Uncle Bill was the root of all laughter. He thought we were "crooking" him in cards and he blamed all odors on Dickey, their Boxer. Wezy was no cook. So, they always took us out to eat on the overnighters. ere was only one destination: e Hamont Grill. I ordered the same shrimp cocktail every time. It had five big shrimp ringing a glass and cocktail sauce inside and a lem- on wedge. ere was probably a tiny fork; I used my fingers. e big guffaw was Uncle Bill's perpetual heart attack at how much "Mr. Pete" Skenteris charged for those five shrimp. Uncle Bill always had that heart attack right when Mr. Pete came to our table on his way around to see everybody. Kids live for dessert. At the Hamont Grill, the absolute A-number-1 dessert in 1968 was rum raisin ice cream. Again, Uncle Bill assaulted Mr. Pete for the size of the ice cream scoops. Mr. Skenteris could have brought us the entire vat, though, and it would not have been enough. Truly, it is unforgettable and one of the most lasting tastes from my childhood. Once, I had the good fortune to find a couple of dollar bills that someone had forgotten at one of the tables. I showed them to Uncle Bill, who I knew had a great affinity for money. Oddly, we had to walk back inside, find the exact table where they had been so carelessly le, and darned if we did not leave them there again. ere is no telling what happened to that money, but I wish I had it today. Once a decade or so ago, while eating lunch, Pete Skenteris stopped by my ta- ble. I asked him if he remembered Uncle Bill and that rum raisin ice cream. It was a dumb question. Pete remembers every- thing that was ever served and to whom it was served and every single thing that ever happened for sixty years in his restaurant. He laughed and told me how oen people ask about that rum raisin ice cream. Joe Hollinshed was a Hamont Grill regular. Once, at the come-one-come-all breakfast booth, he went into a disserta- tion on the meticulousness of the person whose job it was to slice exactly in half the cherry tomatoes that thereaer ended up on opposite sides of the salad bowl. Nev- er one half. Never three halves. Never a whole cherry tomato. Always two halves on opposite sides of the bowl. And I re- member the silent but vehement cursing I gave the North Carolina Bureau of Salad Dressing Dispensation when they made Pete's waitresses stop bringing dressing to the table that was poured out into three separate bowls on a stainless steel server and from which one could choose— French or bleu cheese or ranch, I think. I have been to prayer breakfasts, real estate business meetings and church league basketball banquets at e Ham- ont Grill. Mostly though, I park paral- lel across from Donnie Barefoot's bar- ber shop, walk around to the front door (speaking through the screen door to whichever son, Jimmy or Deno, is cook- ing that day), and order a breaded veal cutlet with tomato sauce, a salad, fried squash and pickled beets. I speak to Pete and Mrs. Skenteris on the way out. My two brothers and I always told our step-father that on the day he realized that he could no longer care for our moth- er, as dementia was taking away so much from her, to say the word, and we would take over. One day, in anguish, he did just that. Immediately, we secured residency at a loving facility. But the worst thing for dementia patients is change. Change of venue, change of medical status, change of neighbors all have the negative corol- lary of taking away even more from the Founder Joe Sugar 1916-1963 Stanley Sugar 1945 - 1990 Joe Sugar 1987 – Present Celebrating 100 Years "From Peddler to Fine Clothier" OF ST. PAULS, INC. JOE SUGAR'S

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