Uncle Mac's Bars and Restaurants helped build interest in restaurants ...

...the way visits to Baltimore readied me for the Wire. His food was never wholesome but there was always drama and romance.
Oh there were trips to Chesapeake House("If you can't cut your steak with a fork its free") and Oyster Bay, but his places like the Hayloft 0r the Harem Club or the Three Deuces or Milt Pappas' Scotch and Sirloin(Pappas was traded from the Orioles right after it was opened...and did his wife go missing and lose a perfect game because of strikes called balls?).But the Punch and Judy Pub stayed open waiting for the Civic Center to open(Judy,the estranged daughter had returned but left again after the restaurant opened). The photo shows my Aunt Marion Dawn who played classical violin and sang on Arthur Godfrey and Gary Moore local radio shows and did tv and MC ed at strip shows and was very sweet. It shows a bald Mac next to the celebrity he had substituted for Lorne Greene(Bonanza) as my surprise Bar Mitzvah guest. Johnny Frisco ,the rubber faced comedian, is pictured here performing his famous lower jaw over the nose move. I still remember the jaws of my aunts dropping when they heard his first few jokes which all began,
"So this lady had really big...." Uncle Henry is shown here(he did that thumb magic thing uncles do,but he was actually missing a thumb) with Aunt Kaye though the two uncles eventually became estranged. Uncle Mac, thanks for the large fire engine and the Hopalong Cassidy gun set and for showing me how to remove lettuce baskets from an eaten tuna scoop salad and wash it down for
reuse, and for the Knicks/ Bullets tickets and arranging the meet with Walt Bellamy and for cooking for the kids at Diabetics camp....no really that was nice and kind of countered some of the other stuff. Aunt Marion(far right), thank you for being nice and a good singer (they say). Glad that in your 80s and 90s you sang each night and your new husband played piano.