11/10/23 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Fifth Graders at Veteran’s Assembly

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

Veterans Day is here. I am named after a veteran, my great Uncle Jim Norton who, as a member of the Army Air Corps was killed in May 1945. He was my Dad’s favorite Uncle. My dad was a veteran of the Korean War.

The other day, doing some fall cleanup and cleanout, I came across an old leather key case, stiff and worn, the kind that opens to reveal three metal loops to secure your keys. On the outside, worked into the leather, is a deer and a tree and my name. Although I don’t use it anymore, haven’t used it for years, it is one of those sentimental items that I will never discard.

Bill Duncan was the man who made this for me. He was a short-order cook on weekend evenings at Deibels, the family saloon and restaurant owned and managed by my dad. Until I was old enough to escape to the front of the house, the kitchen is where I worked filling orders for the waitresses (no waiters then) on very busy Friday and Saturday evenings.

A short order cook is much different than a chef. The food we served was basic, a lot of German, prepared for the most part before the evening rush. When you are short-order, you dish out the food onto plates from steam tables, grills and friers, and place it in the window, ringing a bell for the meal to be served. Ring one time for the waitress in station one and so on down the line.

Bill was a tall gentleman, about six feet four. I suppose he was in his sixties at the time. He had a full head of brown hair. He wore eyeglasses and sported a full moustache. When I worked those weekend nights with Bill, the thing I noticed the most were his hands. They were large and calloused and showed signs of being burned over and over again, which is a sure sign of someone who has spent many years in the kitchen. In fact, there was many a time that I saw him reach over the grill and grab a hot bratwurst with his fingers to place on the bun. Not great by health department standards, but quick and efficient.

Bill was quiet and quick. Unlike most short order cooks, he was not one to lose his temper or curse if the food sat in the window too long. He was the one who trained me, and he trained me well. In fact, I credit my ability to multi-task to being under Bill’s tutelage. On a busy night, we would have ten paper orders hanging on a wire above the window. He taught me to group orders. Three were German Mixes, two were sauerkraut dinners, a couple of them needed fried chicken, and there were always potato pancakes to take off the grill. The trick was to work on as many orders as possible at one time, but put one complete order in the window in the order when the tickets came in. Bill was a master at that, and I got pretty good at it as well.

When the orders slowed down towards the end of the evening, we had two basic tasks. One of course was to put away the food and clean the kitchen thoroughly. After that was done, Bill would pull up a couple of chairs and we would remove all the order tickets from the spindle where we would spear them when the food was picked up. Next to the food items listed were the prices, and Bill and I would count up the dollars of the food we had served. No one asked Bill to do this, and we did nothing with the figure we came up with. Bill just liked to know for his own sake, and I was happy to oblige him. The math computation was done in our heads. Bill insisted on this. I would come up with my total of the tickets he handed me, he would add them to his total and then he would say, “pretty good night, Jim.”

It was when all the work was done that I got to know Bill. He had run his own hamburger place on High Street for many years. Now he was semi-retired and only worked those weekend nights. He was unmarried and had no family that I had ever heard about. His hobby was working with leather. He took pride in the key case he gave me one night and was delighted by my reaction. I had no keys at the time he gave it to me, but when I got my license and later, my first apartment, I used it faithfully.

It was during another evening that Bill mentioned that he was a veteran. He was in the first wave at the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944. All he would say about that day is that he was happy to have survived where many did not. His calm voice belied the emotion that I am sure went with his recollection.

I wanted to ask a million questions, but he cut me off, changed the topic and never brought it up again. Somehow, I knew not to bring up the subject.



Bill, like my great uncle and my dad and millions of other veterans, particularly those who served in war, had the memory of their time etched into them much like the leather which Bill etched for me. God Bless all who have served and serve today.

Jim Silcott