13 December 2011

death makes us remember

my 1976 book Liszt & Other Lists opens with a piece calld "Eat." it's in 2 parts. the first is "lunch: Eddie's Stag Bar" & the 2nd is "dinner: Rusty Nail."

this morning I read the online obit of Don Bentley of Twin Lakes OH. in 1967 he bought Green Trees Inn from Therese Green & reopend it as the Rusty Nail. probably Portage County's premier steakhouse it occupied that wonderful old building until 1981 when Bentley sold it. he moved his establishment to an ugly modern structure behind the original & it remains in business. the old building housed one restaurant after another till it burnt down a few years ago.

my list of dinner partners at the original Rusty Nail includes
Jean-Claude van Itallie
Gregory Markopoulous
Gary Snyder
Richard Eberhart
Henry Van Dyke
Paul Metcalf
Gerald Mast
Kevin McCarthy
Jonathan Williams
Thomas Meyer

when I lived in Twin Lakes it was the closest good restaurant & a place where one always felt comfortable. & every nite Bentley was on premises being the perfect host.

reading his obit I discoverd an odd art historical connection. his sister married into the Helmling family. it was Richard Helmling who operatd the backhoe that buried the woodshed for Robert Smithson.

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