We Had It All, Like Bogey and Bacall: An Ode to Christmas Past . . . and Bertucci's!

Well it's that time once again. Early November, and you know what that means. The Christmas music is already on a continuous loop in my office.
I'm not the Grinch here. I actually like hearing Christmas music. In fact, I dare say my heart has grown to enjoy the Christmas season in recent years. And that's saying something because I spent a great deal of my Twenties locked in "Bah Humbug" mode.

Maybe it's fatherhood that softened me to it. Admittedly I always feel inadequate that I can't really spend the kind of bucks I want to on my son. But let's be honest, he doesn't need a $300 powered Lightning McQueen that he can sit in and stear. Nor does he need enough Duplo blocks to build a castle he can actually stand up in. I just want him to have those things.

Still, that not withstanding, I am looking forward to the holidays. I've even made my peace with with the inevitable snowfall that's soon coming. I just don't feel we need to rush it. Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday too. The smells, the sights, the tastes, . . . I suppose the fellowship. Well, I suppose we just have to accept that, especially in this tough economy when retailers are flailing about in the tide, they're going to keep inundating us with Christmas music earlier and earlier to get us all in that shopping mood.

Which is why I've stopped verbally complaining about the music and decorations materializing so early. It is pretty much a tradition in itself now, and we can all stop marvelling at it. We're really not that surprised any more, are we?

There is something to be said for Christmas in Novemeber. The radio station we've got on at work has pulled a couple obscure ones out of their bu . . . stockings. I'm pretty sure I just heard Anita Bryant singing "Sleigh Ride."

Nothing says Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men like the vocal stylings of Anita Bryant.

I'll pause for those of you under the age of 50 (and/or non-Pop Culture junkies like 34 year-old me) to Google "Anita Bryant." You'll get it.

A favorite Christmas classic of mine is Happy Holidays (It's the Holiday Season) by Mr. Branson, MO himself, Andy Williams. Now let me be quite candid. I hate this song. Musically, lyrically, it drives me up a tree. Andy Williams doesn't help with his cheesey, Catskills delivery. And yet, it's still a favorite of mine, because it somehow transports me back in time every time I hear it.

The song takes me back 14 years. I was 20 years old, waiting tables in a mid-scale Italian restaurant in the suburbs. It was the first place I remember hearing that song, and I must have heard it at least 3 times a shift. I have vivid memories of the quiet times before the rush would start when we'd be refilling romano shakers, wiping down table tops, and hearing Andy singing "So leave a peppermint stick, for old Saint Nick."

I can clearly remember rolling my eyes thinking what a stupid song.

Or as Andy says "whoop-dee-do."

But, those days were some of the happiest of my life. I was young, lost, with little responsibility (other than having to start paying back the student loans for the education I'd quit attempting halfway through), and doing a job that was easy and fun and put cash in pocket every day.

Ok, maybe I shouldn't say "easy", as I spent my fair share of evenings deeply lost in the "weeds." No, that's not a drug reference. Fellow food service veterens know that term all too well, as we've all been there. Still, I loved that job. And even on my worst nights, I was good at it. Damn good.

And I will tell you there was something special about that particular restaurant. Perhaps it was because most of us there, especially that first year, were hired before the restaurant even opened.

It was a Boston-based outfit new to the Chicago area. We went through training together, just like school. We discovered this new menu together. It helped us all grow together like a crew on a ship. I'm not the first to draw the analogy that restaurant people are the modern day pirates.

Without the automatic weapons of course.

The owner, because at that time there actually was one owner - Joey, believed strongly in the idea of family. The decor and motif was very warm inside, intended to be very "homey" and comfortable. It was said they even chose green table cloths as it was a soothing, calming color. The walls were lined with big jugs of wine. We wanted people to sit and relax. Take their time. Sip some vino. Mangia.

We had these fresh baked rolls that were just, you can't even describe. Tear open a hot one and stuff with caponata, or dip it in the sauce . . .! I'm not Italian, but let me just say "fuggedaboudit!"

We had a big beautiful wood-burning brick oven that just smelled . . . wonderful. It made coming in to work every morning better.

And it made the holidays feel even more like, well, just like they're supposed to. It was our own giant buring hearth.

It also helped that the entire staff was like a big family. Almost everyone got along, even with the many different personalities. Sure things got tense. But when the customers began to filter out, and the Mexican music began to play in the kitchen, everyone began to smile and joke and breathe again.

I loved working Christmas Eve there. We'd all be sneaking little "cordials" between the handful of tables that came in. There was a lot of love and well-wishing when we closed early that night.

To be honest, I didn't want to go home. I could have spent that Christmas Eve in the restaurant, white shirt and Looney Tunes tie and all.

This was my other home and those people were my extended family. In fact, that first Christmas, my family was out of town and I was returning to an empty house as I would be making the drive to Indiana on Christmas morning. At the last minute, a handful of my compadres asked if they could come by (my house had become something of the hangout for those of us not yet legal to hit the bars) and I said of course.

We spent our Christmas Eve playing monopoly, drinking fully-loaded Eggnog, and soaking in my parents' outdoor hot tub while snow fell all around. Not a bad way to wait for Saint Nick.

Now I find myself back in the present. Still in a white shirt, but the ties are a little more expensive (though sometimes still stained by tomato sauce.) My hair has some gray, and I'm rounder 'round the middle from sitting at a desk the last decade.

In those days I was on my feet all day, checking on tables, expediting food, washing dishes when necessary (something I actually LOVED to do, and strangely still do - you choose your brand of therapy; mine's cheaper) and just generally rocking and rolling. Making less than half of what I do now, but in some ways never happier.

I'm sure when I talk about those days, I sound like Edward G. Robinson in the movie Key Largo. It was classic Robinson as he played Johnny Rocco, a fugitive mob boss holed up with his gang in a small Key Largo waiting out a Hurricane. It's my favorite Bogart flick, after Casablanca. While Rocco is again type-cast as a gangster scumbag, he has this running heartache about the end of Prohibition.

He's constantly asking other gangsters in the flick, "Don't you think we'll get it (Prohibiton) back? You'll see, we'll get it back," he says. "Then we'll be back on top."

Even though he's a feared and respected gangster, he still yearns for the past. Times were simpler. You ran hooch, you made money, everybody got along. Then things changed. They got more complicated. Money was harder to come by and pressures were building.

I suppose it goes back to what I was saying about knowing you were really good at something once. It's tough when that thing doesn't exist any more. After the restaurant business, I found myself working in the sub-prime mortgage industry (talk about a Pirate analogy - but don't hang me, I was only a lowly crewman) and I think I was pretty damn good at that job too. Til the ship sank, and then of course the entire ocean dried up.
Point is, I understand Rocco's speech, and his feelings all too well.

Still, I wouldn't trade the blessings I've recieved since then to ever go back. But Christmas, and that song especially, will always take me back to those days.

Ok, so I took a funny turn there. If you want a Christmas themed Bogart film, rent We're No Angels. The original. Not that DeNiro/Sean Penn thing from the 80's.

Here's to the good old days of many a Christmas Past. Here's to the start of Christmas Present, early though it may be. And to the hope for many and even happier to come.

Oh yeah, . . . Happy Thanksgiving!

"He'll be comin' down the chimney, down!"

Rough character sketches

Max & the ghost of Hammerhead Jack

In the mood for a Pirate Tale . . . ?

The Legend of Hammerhead Jack

Port Ignatius, Virgin Islands – 1675 –
It was mid morning and the docks were full of merchant ships bringing livestock, textiles, and tea to the colony of Port Ignatius. In return they loaded crates of sugar, barrels of coffee, and cases of rum to sell back in England and Holland and Spain. Sailors and merchants bustled about the shops and businesses alongside the townsfolk.

A group of children gathered on the porch outside the Flying Fish Tavern. Inside, the owner Percy Johnston swept the dusty floorboards. It was still a few hours til opening time.
Out front two expectant “patrons” rested in the morning shade. One was a scruffy straw-colored dog that constantly wandered the port. The other, a stout old man who was a fixture at the tavern. He was the unofficial mascot and storyteller of the Flying Fish, known simply throughout the island as the Commodore.

The Commodore had a round, pink face with a twisted and knotted gray beard. He sat on a stool telling stories to whoever would listen. He had no home or job to speak of. His clothing was tattered and dirty, but his belly was round and full. A green parrot stood a constant watch on his left shoulder, picking tasty fleas from his stringy hair.
His chubby calloused fingers wrapped around the head of his walking stick, which was carved into the face of lion. Where his right leg should have been, instead there was a wooden peg screwed in at the knee.

Everyone knew when the Commodore was around by the clip-clopping sound he made along the floor. He rarely moved though, except to dab sweat from his brow in the tropical heat, or take a swig of grog from the tin cup on a crate beside him.
The Commodore told tales of adventures on the high seas, always he said, as a merchant sailor or privateer. Never did he once claim to participate in or endorse a life of piracy. Often the children who gathered every Saturday to hear him speak would ask to hear how he fought off a tiger shark with only a whale bone knife. It was the same shark, he said, that took his leg.
But on this particular morning, they all wanted to hear another familiar legend – the story of the legendary privateer, Hammerhead Jack.

“So,” began the Commodore with a sly grin, “ye wants to hear a tale of Captain Hammerhead Jack, do ye?” To which all the children would cheer.

“Very well, then. I’ll oblige, only because Hammerhead Jack was the finest man to ever sail the seven seas. The greatest pirate hunter this world has ever known.”

“Is it true he wore a mask?” a little boy asked.

“Aye,” said the Commodore. “A mask the color of turquoise that covered his head and eyes. Hammerhead Jack knew early on the Pirate Brethren would set a fine price on his head. He figured if they didn’t know what he looked like, they’d have a hard time finding him, even when he was sat among them in a tavern.”

“Did Hammerhead Jack ever come to Port Ignatius?” asked another child.

“Did he come here? Why, it were just off these shores he made his final stand,” the Commodore declared. “I was aboard ship with ol’ Hammerhead as he chased down the dastardly pirate Black Eyed Bill right here to Port Ignatius. Little did I know then it would be our last adventure, as it was to be Hammerhead’s final voyage.
Jack despised Black Eye above all other pirates. Legend has it he and Bill know’d each other as children all of yer age. Some even rumored they was brothers but some rift sent Bill astray.”

The Commodore took a slobbery swig from his cup. Foam ran down his beard, dripping onto his belly.

“Well after years of being thwarted at sea by Captain Hammerhead, ol’ Black Eye
set about burning down villages across the Caribbean, after robbing them of all their goods. His plan was to pin the blame on Jack, making it appear that Hammerhead was turncoat. Black Eye instructed his crew to spread rumors throughout the taverns and ports that someone had seen Jack’s ship always sailing off after each attack.

Then one night he and his crew came upon an East India merchant ship listing at port, and set fire to her deck. Before rowing away in the night, Bill took a blue glove, much like one of Jack’s, and tossed it onto the dock. What fool would believe ol’ Jack would drop his glove I don’t know, but it didn’t matter. In spite of all the good Hammerhead Jack had done capturing pirates all over the Caribbean, or his reputation as a gentleman, the King was furious.
The English Navy began chasing Hammerhead Jack all over the ocean, with a warrant for his arrest on the charge of piracy and treason against King and Country. The same King, it should be said who’d commissioned him to hunt pirates in the first place. It was well assumed that if the Navy overtook Jack’s ship, he’d be hung in the first port they found.”

The Commodore ran his meaty finger across his throat, making a grinding sound out of the side of his mouth. The children recoiled and gasped in horror.

“It was likely Jack would be spared the benefit of a fair trial in London,” the Commodore continued.

The yellow mutt at his feet lifted its head and whimpered. Even he’d heard this tale many times before

“Aye,” he continued. “Some say justice is a blind lady. I don’t know if she be blind, but she can sure be misguided. It’s no wonder ladies are considered bad luck aboard a ship. Fortunately, the Navy never caught up to the Mermaid Queen.”

The Commodore looked at a young girl in the front of the group. Her family was new to the Port Ignatius.

“That of course be the name of Hammerhead’s ship. Oh, the Mermaid Queen was a beauty of a Dutch Flute, with a high rear where you could see over the whole vessel. Many nights I stood watch on that quarter deck. Captain Hammerhead would come up and stand with me, often taking the wheel his self.

One day, nigh on twenty years ago Jack came across Black Eyed Bill only a mile out past our very docks. Bill was on his way to sack Port Ignatius, and maybe burn her to the ground as well. Captain Hammerhead gave the order to fire all guns across his flank. As Bill’s ship began to slip into the drink, his band of cut throats began to swing across to board the M.Q. and overtake the crew. Jack’s men had the higher position, but they were far outnumbered by the pirates.”

“You mean you were outnumbered?” said another child.

The Commodore chuckled. “That’s right,” he said. “We were outnumbered. There was little chance we could have kept the ship, or our throats, and ol’ Jack knew it. He climbed atop the quarter deck and called out to us with his sword held high. ‘Men,’ he called out, ‘I order you all to abandon ship!’

“Well at first we all refused. But Hammerhead Jack would not be defied, not even by his loyal crew. He would rather die than let dastardly Black Eyed Bill take his ship or bring harm to us. He drew the pistola from his belt and fired it at the deck by his feet. The men were confused at first. Then we watched as a ball of orange fire ignited on the deck and began to slither down the steps, across the ship. The dancing flame was quickly advancing along a black trail toward an overturned powder keg. Our beloved captain was going to scuttle the ship.

All the men scrambled toward the side of the ship, diving headfirst into the water. I remember bobbing along the surface when the first explosion lit up the night sky. And there still stood Hammerhead Jack aboard the ship, watching as the unlucky pirates were launched into the air. We all shouted for him to dive in after us. It were only moments ‘afore the flames would reach the other barrels below deck. There was enough powder on board to blast that ship to kingdom come!”

“Did he jump?” asked a child.

“Oh no,” said the Commodore, “not Hammerhead Jack. You see one last pirate still stood aboard the deck of the Mermaid Queen. It was Black Eyed Bill himself. The filthy dog lunged at Jack from behind. Oh, sorry there pup.” He reached down and scratched the dog behind the ears. “No offense meant.”

“Where was I? Oh yes, Black Eye tried a sneak attack on Hammerhead. He drew a dagger and swiped it at Jack’s back. Hammerhead swung around and punched Black Eye right in face. I didn’t see it, but some closer to the ship say the black opal that Bill kept in his empty socket bounced across the deck. Bill drew his sword and the two arch rivals engaged in a duel to end all duels. They were both brilliant with a blade, and they danced across the deck trading blows as fire began to overtake the ship. Hammerhead looked brilliant against the orange flames in his blue and white, and Black-eye just a devil in his blood red coat and black wig.
Hammerhead looked out at us all treading water in the bay and gave us a grin. Then he swung ‘round and knocked the sword right out of Bill’s hand. He brought the butt of his sword down hard against Bill’s head. Ol’ Black Eye hit the deck like a sack of flour.

From the water, the whole crew let out a cheer. Ol’ Hammerhead turned to see us all floating below and he gave us a salute with a wide grin. Sadly, just as he turned to dive down to the water, the flames reached the powder kegs in the hold below.

The sight was like a volcano spewing up out of the sea. The burst was so bright we had to shield our eyes. Most of the men dove under the surface for safety. By time we came back up, the ship was but a memory. Planks of burning wood were spread out all across the blackened water. Our great captain, Hammerhead Jack, the man who’d spent his life chasing pirates and protecting the innocent was gone.

Mind you, I imagine that’s how he’d have wanted it, waging battle with a villain the likes o’ Black Eyed Bill.”

“Hammerhead died?” some of them asked.

“He never swum back up,” the Commodore answered. “We waited for what seemed an eternity afore swimming ashore. Even once we reached the shore, the whole lot of us sat up all night around a fire, hoping to see Hammerhead crawlin’ up from the surf.”

Percy Johnston came out of the tavern with a pitcher in his hand. He saw the wide-eyed children drinking in the old fool’s tale. He took the mug from the crate and filled it. It was a service he always extended the Commodore, even though he knew the old man had no coins to speak of. Percy would also slip a plate out the backdoor when his wife wasn’t watching. He didn’t believe a word the man said, but he appreciated a good story just the same. It was the most entertainment one could get on the island, and Percy was happy to pay for it in his own way.

“Oh Commodore,” he said, setting the mug down again. “There wasn’t any Hammerhead Jack. Don’t lead these children on that way. Hammerhead Jack is just a myth they used to tell us about when I was a boy myself.”
Percy shook his head and chuckled then walked back into the tavern.

“Don’t be paying attention to what that man said,” said the Commodore, taking a sip from the cup. White foam dripped from his moustache and he set it back down.
“Hammerhead Jack was no myth. He was a man, like you and me. And he was a hero. The bravest, most upright man I ever knew and not even I knew his real name or what he looked like behind that blue mask over his eyes.”

The Commodore took another drink and scanned the horizon. He squinted in the sunlight as a black smudge crept across the horizon. It was a ship. A dark ship from what he could see with no flag of any country flying above her sails.

“Aye children,” he said. “I’d give my other leg to have a man like Hammerhead Jack here in Port Ignatius again.”

To Be Continued . . .

B.Scott 11.10.09