"I'll Meet you at Sims Lunch Later on, Rose"

 

 

 

         A Visit to  Sim’s Lunch            

 

 

(This story is about my friend, Rose Marie Malburg Sorbello who was a childhood friend on Mcloud Street in the Southend in the 40s. It was one of the first stories I published in my blog, “On Being a Southender,” now called “Beyond the Southend.” She contacted me a few years later and corrected a few things about this story. She also became one of my Facebook friends. My sympathies to her family. I will miss her.)

Several years ago, one of my favorite shows on TV was “Evening Shade” with Burt Reynolds as a high school  football coach. It took place somewhere in a small southern town by the same name. Burt and his wife had three children I think, one of them a baby. Both Burt and his wife worked during the day; therefore, the baby got shifted around from one person to another.

In my favorite episode, the baby gets lost. But no one panics. It is assumed that someone responsible is taking care of him and he’ll show up at the end of the day somehow. As it happens, the baby is passed around and finally ends up with a man who travels around town with a child’s red wagon. The baby was quite content to sit in the wagon while this character did what he had to do that day. The man, the baby, and the wagon end up at everyone’s favorite restaurant in town. I think it was a barbecue place. Guess who is there when the little red wagon with the baby in it comes through the door—Burt.

What an ideal world, I thought, and then I remembered a similar story that happened right in the South End. I “pinky swear” the following story is true. I may not have all the facts right, but it’s true just the same.

When I was about four or five, there was a big family who lived just across the street from us. The mother had a lot of kids to keep track of and she used to tie one of the little girls out by the front of the house so she could get some fresh air. She checked on her often I’m sure, but on this particular day, she didn’t check well or often enough.

The little girl was younger than I. I was allowed outdoors by myself, and it didn’t take long for me to notice the little girl tied up by her front steps. She was very unhappy to be tied up like that and convinced me quite easily to untie her. OK, now what?

My memory is a little hazy here, but at some point, she or I or both of us decided to take a little trip “upstreet” to her Uncle Sim’s restaurant on Park Street. If you know the South End at all, you know it is about a mile from Mcloud Street to Park Street where Sim’s Lunch sat, next door to the Park Theater. If you’re my age, you also know that in the 40s, mothers didn’t work. Therefore, what is amazing is that not one mother was looking out her kitchen sink window, or hanging out clothes or something. If they saw us that far away from our homes, they would have called one or both of our mothers, or better yet, walked us back to where we belonged. In those times everyone knew what kid belonged to what family and where that family’s house was.

So there we go hand in hand up the street, crossing Suffolk Street, going down the hill, crossing to the Water Street sidewalk and walking up that long street to the South End business district. We had to cross busy South Main Street, then a couple more small streets before we got to Park Street. Thank God Sim’s was a short walk if you turned left there at the corner of Park and Main Streets so that we didn’t have to cross the very busy Park Street.

You might wonder how children so young didn’t’ get lost along the way. The answer to that is the fact that I walked that route many times with my mother, as we had no car. I also knew Sims because my father often took me there to pick up a greasy bag of French fries for our usual Friday supper of Sim’s French fries and boiled hot dogs my mother made to go with them. Sim claimed to have invented the original lobster roll, by the way. It was a well known place in town and often overcrowded with diners.

Well here comes two little girls in the door of Sim’s Lunch. Sim recognized us immediately and looked behind us expecting to see an adult. When he didn’t see anyone, he beckoned for us to sit down in front of him on the counter stools. He questioned us and found out pretty quick that we’d come all alone because we wanted to visit him and maybe get some of those famous French fries.

I think he did give us something to eat, probably French fries, and something to drink, while he called one of our homes to tell people where we were. I think my father was dispatched to bring us home. I wasn’t punished in any way, but told not to untie my friend again. My mother wasn’t too happy I’ll tell you.

We were all saddened when Sim’s burned down during the ’52 fire that took a big part of the southern business district with it. There will never be another place quite like it.

Thanks for listening.