Commentary

Where Everybody (Wants To) Know Your Name

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

From 1982 to around 1988 I made sure I was in front of the Television every Thursday, along with most of America, and watched Cheers. The adventures of everyone at that bar captivated me. I wanted to be Sam, date Diane, hang out with Norm, and have a friend like Cliff. But more than anything, I wanted to belong to a place like Cheers. Who didn’t? I mean, it even asked us, right in the opening song, “Wouldn’t you like to get away?”, and for me, even at that young age, the answer was a resounding “yes”.

I marched into junior high, then on into high school, and finally college, confident I’d find that place somewhere, that a community of my choosing would embrace me so much that when I walked in they would yell in unison my name, ala Norm’s entrance, or they would gather around when I told them all stories of my glory days like Sam’s old yarns of his baseball playing days. As college ended and my life started to turn to “real”, I started to wonder more and more when I’d find “Cheers”, where all my friends and cohorts would be waiting to see me.
Sure, there were places where everybody “knew your name” but usually they didn’t give a shit. For 20+ years I saw various communities form around me – a coffee shop I frequented here, a local watering hole there – and sure, I knew everybody there. We’d exchange pleasantries while the waitress would ring me up, or I’d slap five to the bartender and banter about the score of some lame mid-season NBA game, but those places never made you feel fulfilled. It slowly began to dawn on me that the premise of Cheers was full of shit. Places like that don’t exist. It was a crazy Hollywood construct that I bought – hook, line and sinker – when I was a kid and I’ve been looking for that lie every since.

From that moment I greeted every smile from a barista with skepticism; every hello from a waiter with the thought that he or she was trying to get a better tip; or every “regular” at the coffee shop who said “hi” was as big of a dope as I was for thinking that there was some bond created just because we frequented the same place. Sure, I would engage in chit chat, and sometimes I would enjoy walking into my favorite cafe to find my order waiting for me before I hit the register. But there was always disappointment – there was no Woody coming over and seeing how my day was; there was never a “Diane” to talk to; and forget a “Sam Malone” coming out of the back. That never happened, and I knew it wouldn’t. I kept to myself, stewing over the bill of goods NBC sold me two decades before.
~
This past October my Uncle, Andy Gwinnup, passed away. He died on a week where nothing extraordinary was happening in my life, or even at work. Even that month, October, hadn’t been all the special either. Calm weather in a calm world met the sad news of his death. And, if you know Andy, that was about as poetic and fitting as a sign from above could be.

Let me back up a second and introduce my Uncle. Andy was born, along side my mother and his brother Jim, in a small town in Indiana called Greenfield. Andy found himself in Tucson, Arizona as an outcast and he played the part beautifully. Cowboys used to call people like Andy “ornry sons of bitches”, which, I think, is an accurate description of his temperment in the young days. As he aged he mellowed a bit, fathering a large family and creating a reputation for himself as a hard worker and intesely loyal friend. In fact, he worked (delivering newspapers) right up until the time of his death.

But back to that calm October week.

Once funeral arrangements were made I boarded a plane and headed for Arizona and somehow made it in time for his funeral. And, like most funerals, it was sad being around those whose lives he touched, and those who still missed him dearly.

At his funeral I had the good fortune to meet many of Andy’s friends, some of whom he had never talked of (at least, to me). One group in particular caught my attention. They were introduced to me by my Mother as “the people from Phils Cafe”, and they were nice people, quiet and humble. As we prepared to leave his funeral my mother asked me if I’d like to stop by Phil’s Cafe for a moment, which I thought was a sweet gesture – a bit over the top, maybe, as we had just seen everyone from Phil’s at the funeral – but nice nonetheless. So we drove crosstown and pulled into the strip mall parking lot in front of Phil’s. And there, posted in the doorway was something I’ll never forget.
It was a cardboard sign stuck to the glass, the marker scribbles on it reading “Closed Thursday 10/30 Due To A Funeral”.

I stopped for a moment, taking in the sign, and instantly I understood what this trip to Phil’s meant, and what it said about Phil’s Cafe and my Uncle Andy.

The journey to this cafe wasn’t to say hello to someone who appreciated my Uncle’s business. It wasn’t about sitting in Andy’s chair and feeling nostalgic. No, this was much more. This was a celebration of an actual community that was built by strangers who became friends, and it was strong, real and sincere.

As the story goes, Phil and Veronica, a married couple, took over an old chinese restaurant when it went under and Phil’s Cafe was born. Andy delivered the papers to the vending machine outside their door. As my Mom tells it, he met them and instantly took a liking to them, introducing both of them to several of the local shop owners he knew on the block, from the hairdresser to the Vietnamese owners of a small package store. From that day forward Andy would come in each morning, rain or shine, after he got done delivering papers and before he went to his other job as an apartment handyman and manager. He would order the same breakfast, same coffee, and sit in the same place.

When Phil and Veronica would make up their menu selections, they always rotated it to accommodate Andy because Andy didn’t cook. His main meal was always at Phils. Knowing how important Phil’s was becoming to Andy, my mother gave him a gift cards for Phils at every opportunity and when they ran out, Veronica always told Andy he had money left.

And of course my Uncle had his favorites. Phil and Veronica’s daugher Natalie worked at the Cafe, and my Uncle took a liking to her right away. This is how my Mom tells it:

when Andy and Natalie met, it was magic. First, when she began washing dishes at Phils, Andy slowly got her to say hello as shy was shy and also trying hard to overcome some hearing impairments she suffered as a youth. Despite her shyness and challanges she, started to open up to Andy and he slowly gained her confidence. Finally Phil and Veronica let her wait on Andy. When she took her first order, I thought she would faint! He kidded around with her, showed her lots of love, encouraged her. She went to job training, learned to ride the bus, and when Phil and Veronica gave her a birthday party one night at the restaurant (sponge bob theme, of course) Andy and I were guests of honor, and Natalie was just beaming.

It’s amazing to hear something about someone you know well – maybe even are related to – that you have never heard before and it shocks you. That is how I felt learning of Andy and Natalie’s friendship. Here was a man, well into his sixties, who grew up hard and tough and “has the scars to prove it”, finds himself now giving Spongebob presents to a young girl just starting out on her own hard and tough journey.

~

Phil’s cafe soon filled up with the funeral attendees. A lively buzz of conversation and storytelling started. People told tales of Andy to each other while Phil and Veronica cooked the final batch of enchilandas. While his seat remained empty, Natalie filled up people’s coffee cups as if each of us were Andy himself. Throughout the day the crew at Phils told me stories of adoration for Andy, a persepctive I had never heard. He had made a huge impact on their lives and business. He was as much a fixture of that restaurant as the staff, the tables and the menus.

I tried to image what drew Andy to Phils. I’m not sure what first brought him in – I don’t think it was the food (although mine was damn good) or the coffee – as there were other places closer to his work and house. No, I’m not convinced it was any of these. It was the people.
Phil’s tapped into our universal need as humans to be recognized and appreciated. In the staff Andy found numerous friends who understood his essence – hardworking, pragmatic and strong, with a dash of sarcatic and dry humor. They propped each other up and supported each other. The relationship was obviously symbiotic, each taking something from each other.

Looking at the workers at Phils, I began to wonder what my Uncle’s absence means to them. Sure, there will be other customers, and probably a few more regulars like Andy, but sitting there, next to his empty chair, I had the feeling that the workers at Phils had accomplished something they set when they first opened up Phil’s. They gave my Uncle a place to call home, if only for a few hours a day. A place were “everybody knows your name”, as the song went. I imagine there is a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that your business touched someone’s life. How many of you can say that about the place you work?

~

On the plane back to New York I thought long and hard about Phil’s. Ever since then I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind.
They made me realize what was lacking in my own search for community. It has nothing to do with the facade of the place, or anything about the place itself. It’s all about you and how you engage your surrounding. Do you sit and drink your coffee and eat your granola and wonder why nobody is coming up and connecting with you? Or do you, like my Uncle, introduce the new people on the block to your friends; do you talk to the waiters and waitresses that help you, and take a sincere interest in their lives?

And do you have an open mind when it comes to who you engage with? Do you judge those around you and deem them worthy of your time and energy? The interesting thing about Cheers is, while they all seemed larger than life as celebraties, their characters were all misfits. And lonely. Take the Coach Ernie Pantusso, who was so alone that “he spent his days off working at the bar.” Sam Malone was a washed up baseball player who couldn’t deal with life outside of his bar. Both Norm and Cliff were alcoholics – funny ones, but alcoholics none the less. Even the character of Carla was a wreck. On her luck with men, Carla remarked that men usually ignore her; “it’s as if I slept with him,” (Wikipedia).

But yet we adored these people for years upon years, longing to be them, when, in reality, those characters would long to be us. I understand now that communities are not ready made, they are not waiting for you to come so they can be awaken like some slumbering giant. They need to be cultivated with genuine kindness, the kind that my Uncle carried into Phil’s that first day delivering their newspapers.

My Mom tells it best when I asked her why she thought Andy took a liking to Phils.

Phil’s is like a slice of Americana. Everyday, average people, mostly low to average income, surprisingly, some doctors, contractors, etc. . Mostly they come, Andy included, because in some weird way, they all know each other. The regulars greet each other, catch up. The new ones listen, chime in, or not. Everyone is relaxed, has a friend for an hour. Maybe that is the only time all day they have a friend. For Andy, that was his substitute Indiana. Small, “American” cooking, not pretentious, they “got” his humor, and they knew he truly cared for them. He laughed, played jokes, drew cartoons, gossiped, we talked over our problems sharing time and space 2-3 times during the week that kept us in touch until Sunday.

When I ask her why everyone at Phil’s took a liking to her brother:

Andy was loyal to them, predictable, funny. Many times Veronica, the wife part of the ownership would ask Andy what he wanted to eat. He’d look up at the “special board”, frown, say “aw hell, I don’t care, just tell Phil gimme whatevers left,” then laugh. Veronica would come out with some heap of food which he always loved. Andy ribbed Veronica unmercifully about her spelling on the specials board. Good news is she improved! Andy drew up some plans to expand the seating on a napkin. Veronica and Phil actually changed the restaurant just as Andy drew it and still have the napkin he drew it on!

Now, sitting her in New York, months removed, I think of Phil’s and I wonder how they are doing in this recession. It makes me think back to that day in October and the sign they put in the door, and what it means to close down your business for few hours to go to a funeral when the economy is this tough and customers are hard to come by. But yet they did it out of a genuine appreciation for their friend, my Uncle Andy.

I think I understand Cheers now. I get that it was a TV show, yet, in a funny way, the lyrics that opened that show are more true now than they were in 1982. Everybody knew Andy’s name, and yes, they were all glad he came.

And in so, so many ways, I am too. Not only did he liven the spirits of those at Phil’s, but he taught me, his nephew, that you don’t wait for the perfect time to create the perfect community in the perfect way with the perfect people. Those people and those communities are all around you, and they are yours for the taking if you want them.

In writing this I asked my Mom what she thought Andy would say to the people at Phils if he had one more chance. This is what she wrote:

Thanks alot you guys, love you. Gotta move on now…

© 2009 Sneaking Suspicion.