If I can recover, I'll pass along part of my conversation with Mr. Dell, whom I ran into at Walmark just now. He's not in good health, but he could remember most of his problems with running his establishment. Never listened to the radio show that always played his phone messages(maybe John Boy and Billy) but heard them by calling the local number once a week. May have a tee shirt coming, as he said "if I can live through the dozen doctor's appointments I have in the next week."
---Dell told me that if he had stayed in business, he would be dead by now or in prison. He told me that he used a word that I could use in front of him, but don't do it around others. (yeah, that word)
What seemed to be a real sticking point with him was dealing with certain types of customers.
As he explained it, there may be 4 couples to come in and ask for menus and a glass of water with ice and lemon. The waitress would take the water and ask what they wanted to order. At that point, they would want to wait a while.
Well, every now and then, someone would leave the table and go to the toilet. When they sat back down, there would be a full glass in front of them. This would go on as each person made multiple trips to the toilet.
Dell would send his waitress over to get their order, and they still weren't ready. They would say something like they were waiting for someone, but would like some more water with ice and lemon.
In a couple of hours, they would have to feel down the wall to go to the toilet. (Dell knew what was going on by then and would send the waitress over again.)
Usually they would tell her that there was a mix up and they were supposed to meet the other couple somewhere else.
Dell would go over to the table and tell them if they couldn't act right, "don't come back." After they left, half of the glasses were gone.
"They were drinking their cheap azz liquor, even though I sold liquor, using My glasses, My ice, and My lemon. Listening to My music. And then stealing My glasses."
"Hired a boy to watch the door and check things that didn't look right, and he was making more money than the business was taking in."
"Now Cracker Night was different."(Cracker Night was when he had a deal on all the shrimp you could eat, but you had to be a cracker) No (word) were allowed in my place on Wednesday night.
"As far as I know, we never lost a glass and all drinks were bought and paid for. They even tipped the waitress."
"Not saying that all (word) were bad, because we have some mighty fine ones. It just seemed like all of the bad ones ended up at Dell's, and these were the ones that ran us out of business."
"Oh, did I mention the sugar packets?"

I always enjoyed hearing the voice mails from the den.

It was John Boy and Billy and those voice mails were hilarious. I thought it was fake at first until I realized you can't make that stuff up.

ttt

BTW, I told him he should get "Dell's Den" copywrited, because he could sell a whole lot of tee shirts.

Phone number is (334) 756-3336.

The last message is still there but it is old.

That was a weekly routine to call Dell's and hear the ramblings