 |
 Pining
for a Half Dollar Hangtown Fry
When
I read about Pete and Barbara Mikacich’s plans
for changes in the operation of their Andiamo! Restaurant,
I found myself wandering back in memory to Andiamo!’s
predecessor, the Rosemount — not at Alhambra and
Folsom but at its original location downtown.
Back when I was 14 or 15 and working during a legislative session as a page in
the State Senate, the Rosemount on 9th between J and K was my favorite lunchtime
destination, especially on payday, when I was flush.
We were paid weekly, $2.50 per day, $15 for a six-day week. Check in hand, we’d
hustle down to the main floor of the Capitol and cash our checks in the Treasurer’s
office. But we didn’t want a ten-dollar bill and a five. No way. We’d
take our pay in dollar bills, 15 of which made a satisfactory wad in a teenage
wallet.
Payday was Friday, and I would splurge on a bowl of chowder, a piece of apple
pie and a glass of milk, consuming it alone in a curtained-off booth, paying
for it with a single coin — a quarter. I think that called for a nickel
tip, which was generous even by today’s inflated standards. After all,
a nickel is 20 percent of two-bits, isn’t it?
Later, when I’d become a little more sophisticated in my tastes, I learned
the gustatory satisfaction to be found in a Hangtown fry, a delectable combination
of oysters, bacon and eggs, costing all of 50 cents. It’s still my favorite
dish — or would be if I could only find one and afford it at today’s
prices.
When Peter Valerio dared fate and deserted 9th Street for the Alhambra and Folsom
site in 1945, as WWII was winding down, the feeling of many was that he’d
lost his mind. “Who,” all the wiseacres wondered, “will go
way out there just to eat?” Pete himself was a little dubious about the
move, and hedged his bet just a little. If you walk through the parking lot behind
Andiamo! today, you’ll notice extra-large service doors, big enough, well,
to drive a car through.
Exactly. The way Pete Valerio had it figured, if the know-it-alls proved correct,
and Rosemount customers failed to follow him to the new location, he thought
the building might make a capital car dealership or automotive garage. Those
big doors were never needed.
Maybe it was because moving “way out there” had been so successful
for the Rosemount that when redevelopment forced the Español from what earlier
had been Ceasar Caffaro’s Commercial Hotel at 3rd and I, the owners had
no qualms about moving their operation to what had been the Square Deal at 58th
and Folsom. The Espanol continues to prosper also.
|
• • •
You
never know when you’re going to run into a surprising coincidence
right in the middle of the pages of a library book. When
the independent and argumentative Joan J. checked out an
Erle Stanley
Gardner book from the McKinley Branch recently, she knew
it was no Perry Mason story. Not with a title like “Gypsy
Days on the Delta,” it wasn’t.
The surprise came when right in the middle of reminiscing about the meals at
Giusti’s in Walnut Grove, Gardner’s focus in the 48-year-old volume
shifted suddenly to Challis, Idaho, and an incident dealing with an outdoor guide
named Bill Sullivan.
Now most folks wouldn’t have the vaguest idea where Challis is and what
it’s like. Nor would we, if our older son Tony hadn’t moved there
about 25 years ago. Bill Sullivan’s name would ring no bell with most readers
either, but it did with us because several decades after Gardner’s book
was published, Tony introduced us to this same Bill Sullivan, by then an old
man, shortly before his death.
Small world? Small and growing smaller.
• • •
Maybe
this story about the British from the 711 Club bulletin
will amuse you as it did me. It deals with NASA’s development
of a special gun used to launch 4-pound dead chickens
at cars, planes and space shuttles to simulate frequent
collisions and test the resistance of windshields.
When the Brits heard about this development, they requested the loan of a gun
to test the windshields of their new high-speed trains.
Well, when the gun was fired and the dead bird propelled into the windshield,
the glass was smashed, the console was shattered, the engineer’s back
rest was split in two and what was left of the bird was embedded in the wall
of the
cabin.
The shocked Brits, of course, notified NASA, sending along with their report
the design of the windshield, begging for suggestions from the U.S. scientists.
NASA responded with just one suggestion, a three-word one:
“Defrost the chicken.”
• • •
You
may have thought all Julius Caesar ever said worth noting
was “Et
tu, Brute,” when he was stabbed in the rotunda, but he
also made the highly sensible comment, “As a rule, what
is out of sight disturbs men’s
minds more seriously than what they see.” And please don’t
ask me to translate that back into Latin. Please.
And while I’m in a quoting mode, French mystery writer Georges Simenon
said, “I adore life but I don’t fear death. I just prefer
to die as late as possible.”
And I’ll go wholeheartedly along with that, having just turned
81 last week.
After
retiring from a long and respected career with The Sacramento
Bee, Stan Gilliam found that he just couldn't stop writing. So
he brought
his "Stan's Sacramento" column
to the Spectrum,
where
it has been a favorite
of readers
for 15 years
... and
counting.
Senior
Thoughts Senior
Beat
55-Plus Aging
Lifestyles
• • •
TOP | HOME
This page and its contents ©2005 Metropolitan
News Company, Inc. |
|
|
|
