Holding Down The Fort
Last Tuesday night, I went with my sons Joe and Gainer to the Fort, downtown Springfield’s classic standby. The day before, I called my old friend John Perry, the Fort’s general manager, to ask if we could slide into a booth for dinner. He lined it up like he always does.
It was good to be back at the Fort. And it’s always great to see and talk to John. It’s been a tough year for the establishment. Rudy Scherff, whose family owned the place for decades, passed away. So did a relative of ours, the Fort’s co-owner Andy Yee.
When the Fort was about to close for keeps a few years ago, Andy, Peter Picknelly, and Kevin and Mike Vann stepped up to Jim Dandy-to-the-rescue it. But it’s John Perry, the greeter in the vest for well over twenty years, who is the real connection to the nostalgia of the place.
In an interview with Harvard Magazine, John said, “Everyone I see here is a regular.” He also said, “We’re very sentimental. Yeah we’re a restaurant, but when your grandparents, parents, kids, siblings, and friends have all been coming here for so long, you kind of latch on to each other.”
My dad used to take me to the Fort all the time. We’d go after he’d pick me up at Saint Thomas More in Connecticut and during summer nights when my mom and the rest of the gang were in Maine. One summer night at the Fort I got Pops in some trouble. We were having dinner in a booth and I had my back to the entry door. My hair was long and blond at the time. A business agent from one of the building trades that my dad dealt with came strolling in, spotted my father, and bolted to the dining room, which took my father by surprise. Then word got out in the construction world that Charlie O’Brien, father of eleven kids, was having a fling with some blond babe.
Hey, a lot of years, a lot of stories. A lot of memories with my kids. Today, other than the steins on the wall, John Perry is the last connection to all of that. As the late great Brian Trelease would always say, “Who’s better than John?”
Keep your dukes up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf4rxCB4lys
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