CityView Magazine

12 | March/April 2015 My dad had a personality trait of keeping his cards close to the vest. He did not want publicized the specifics of his business or personal life. That wall came tumbling down, though, when in the presence of women in the work force. He could not help but to interact openly. McFadyen's Musings BY BILL MCFADYEN Of Pancakes and Other Elixirs F or instance, in the McFadyen Music days, he and I developed a habit of eating late breakfasts at the Pancake House adjoin- ing Gene Ammons' hotel along 301 Business. It was just down Gillespie Street from our building where we both had offices. Dad got hungry in the mid- mornings. I just wanted to get out of working and he was paying. ere was a tall brunette waitress. rough something other than luck, we always ended up in her section. She was probably halfway between us in age. It is odd how as the years progress, gaps in ages disappear. When in high school, you would not even talk to someone three years younger. Sitting at the table in that diner separated by the sugar packets and maple syrup dispensers, it was a toss-up as to who bantered most with whom. It was not unusual to discover a third strip of bacon beside the eggs, nor was it rare that the tip included additional currency beyond the customary percentage. Eve- ryone's itch was appropriately scratched. Remembering those encounters still in- vokes happiness today. Aer father and son forged a truce following the battles of child-rearing years, he began to take me with him to annual conferences around the country held by a group of non-competing, like- minded retail music dealers. e corpo- rate officers of each entity in the group would trade ideas and constructively critique each other's businesses. I do not subsequently remember my father tell- ing people back home of any great ideas I had at the table during my vice-pres- idency. I do, however, remember him very oen telling people how I charmed us into First Class in the Pensacola air- port through some apparently upgrade- worthy flirtation cast toward the pretty blonde attending the computer at the gate. I do not mean to imply herein that the trait was hereditary, I simply mean to demonstrate some common ground between us. He continued his charming ways even into the final days of his life. I went up to see him when there was barely a modicum of hope that he could re- bound. Not at all to my surprise, despite his weakened ways, I found him inter- acting with a quite lovely nurse named Sharon. It was obvious that Sharon was not as vocal as the waitress at the Pancake House had been, but perhaps this particular setting called for some- one with a bit more subtlety anyway. As I gazed in the room at him holding Nurse Sharon's hand trying to judge how much life he had le, his family physician, Dr. David Stewart, exited the hospital room. "How is he, sir?" I asked. Dr. Stewart looked back at the hand- holding that he had no doubt witnessed in his own office so many times and said with a grin-between-men, "Oh, I think that he is as good as can be expected." As shis came and went and as staff ro- tated in and out over those final days, Nurse Sharon consistently indulged Dad's fading charms. I know what it is like to nearly fail at college level Biology 101. So in my way of thinking, the successful completion of a degree where the sciences move into third and fourth levels of difficulty, a de- gree that subsequently accredits one for a career in medical professions, is impres- sive. Factor in that a subset of those like the Nurse Sharons of the world see myr- iad people come daily into hospitals only to witness their deaths time aer time, yet they keep coming to work and they keep holding hands of those with fad- ing pulses. It is a special contribution to one's fellow man, an exceptional gi for humankind, not only for the infirmed, but also for the surrounding family. Some months aer Dad's funeral, I went to my wife's workplace for this or that. My timing had to be precise, as she was teaching group exercise classes that ended on the hour. If I was to see her without being an intrusion, then I had to be there when the big hand was on the 12. Class ended, the door opened and in I wandered. ere rolling up her mat was Somewhere else in that future, some dying man may see a kindred twinkle in her prime-of-life eyes and reach out for my daughter's hand such that the leaving of this world for the next is less burdensome due to that greatest of elixirs, the human touch. The world will be better for it.

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