I’ve been going through stuff that I have accumulated over my lifetime. I’ve had trouble throwing out anything. Fortunately my wife has wanted to keep a nice house so the bulk of my stuff was relegated to the garage when I had one. Then a 40 foot storage container and then another one as we continue to downsize. I got down to one 40 foot container and then this past year I was determined to get down to less. Now I’m down to a 23 foot box trailer packed to the rafters. I’m so proud of this in spite of the fact that I had a completely debilitating stroke in the meantime. Now I get tired on a regular basis. And at times things seem to be at a standstill. Because I have to have help with so many things, I have learned a great deal about patience.
As a result, I’ve come across some interesting things that I had forgotten about. I had hopes and dreams galore. Many of them successful and some unfulfilled as of yet. I had hopes that my dream restaurant would be completed and would be successful. Also, that Cathy’s long term dream to have a family with little kids hanging around making a complete family unit, would come true. The key word here is long term dream. I wanted the restaurant to be up and running before Cathy’s dream and Cathy was going to work at the hospital until that time. Everybody from the adoption agencies said it would take about seven years to adopt. I was finishing my restaurant at the year three mark. For some reason at this time, Cathy got a bee up her britches that she wanted her sewing room turned into a nursery which I could not understand but said okay though September was far from when we would be at the top of any agency’s list. In November, I had just opened up my restaurant when a call came in from one of the adoption agencies that they had a 2 and 1/2 months old baby girl, born in September (how did Cathy know?). Did we want her? You know what they always say if you want to hear God laugh tell Him what your plans are.
I kept the restaurant going for three years but with interest rates at 20% it was probably the worst time to open a restaurant. Cathy stayed home for months after each of our 2 daughters, 17 months apart, arrived and became the best mom anybody could have asked for. After I closed the restaurant I continued to work as a bartender, food server, or the manager for the next five years, but I don’t think my head was in it after that point. Funny thing about kids, from the moment the kids came into my life, they became the most important things in my life. After my bankruptcy I got a job working at a friend’s restaurant called Murphy’s Jenner by the Sea. I was tending bar there one evening when I struck up a conversation with the guy who had come in with his girlfriend. He had heard about my restaurant which had a good reputation even though it had closed. He wanted to know what happened to it. He was in the same circumstance that I had found myself in. He had a restaurant in a good location in Calistoga. He was going through a divorce and was desperately trying to keep his kids. Fortunately, before he left that night we set up an appointment to get together at his restaurant the following week. It was a cute little place on Main Street and was packed. The owner had invited me and my family over for breakfast. We never got breakfast; things were so disorganized I finally left my spot and was pouring coffee. I was an immediate help and it was obvious that they were understaffed. I sent Cathy home with the kids and continued working the floor until it got slow. The owner was working as the head cook that day. I assumed that his wife was probably responsible for the front room before the divorce. Before I left that day he had asked me if I was interested in being the manager and I said yes. And although he was not going to to put anything down on paper, on a handshake, he promised me that if I worked there for a year he would give me 20% ownership.
Not long after that I found almost everybody that I ran into asked the same question; “how are you able to work with him?”. It turns out that he had a horrible reputation when it came to his employees, he liked to get in their faces and yell. For the most part, I was able to stop that reaction with the employees. I don’t remember how many employees that he had gone through, but the number 50 waitresses in six months stands out in my memory.
Calistoga is an eclectic little town at the top end of the Napa Valley and it wasn’t very long before I got written up by the owner of the Calistoga Gazette in her weekly article called the Grapevine.
She wrote the following in Grapevine, “another thing we learned is that Tom Patterson, Manager of the (xxx I’m purposely leaving the name out) Restaurant, is a crack professional photographer. He helped put himself through college with his trusty little camera. It’s amazing what you can learn by talking to people. Photography is not his first love though. The restaurant business is number one. He used to own a place called The Garden Of Eatin’, one of the cutest names for a restaurant I’ve ever heard. One thing for sure, as Manager of the (xxx) Restaurant in Calistoga, he has improved the place……no reflection on the owner, but sometimes things get too big too fast and it’s just too much for one person to handle it. Anyway, the restaurant is a great place to eat and the service is 100% better and the chocolate mousse tort is fantastic!!!”
I worked there for approximately 11 months when the owner came into my office and said, “I’m going to fire you now. There’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to give 20% to anybody. If you leave town quietly and don’t go to the newspaper, I will pay you three months pay”. He knew that I was well liked in the community and me getting fired would not sit well with with the locals. But the fact was, I couldn’t afford a lawyer and there was no contract, so I left town without any problems.
It probably was about six months later when I saw his gold Mercedes on the streets of Sausalito. He rolled down his window and called out for me to stop. He wanted to talk to me. He came up to me and put his arms around me and called me a friend. I wanted to hit him. Then he explained to me that somebody had been stealing from him and he thought it was me. He said,”I didn’t think it was the bookkeeper because of her religion. I don’t want to offend anybody and talk about religion, so we’ll just keep it at that.” It was the bookkeeper and he wanted to apologize to me personally. Now it’s only a story in my memoirs. And maybe a lesson for anyone that can use it. A handshake doesn’t mean anything in today’s market place. And be careful who calls you a friend. Now my kids have grown up and learned from my mistakes. Which is the greatest gift a father could ask for.
Tom Patterson – Photographer – Writer – and Seeker 
Great story!