Melvin Lorenzo Stinnie RIP

That is Melvin Lorenzo Stinnie in the middle, leading the Chef Ted crew on what was probably his 10,000th job working for/with me. It was Reunion Weekend 2013 on The University of Virginia's Lawn and the last time we worked together. Melvin left this world on July 9, 2015 at the age of 62. He was the paternal head of at least nine grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. Sweet reader, if there was ever a man in this world that deserves eternal rest, it is one Melvin Lorenzo Stinnie.

Melvin and I used to try and figure out when we first met but it is but a blurb in the past, damn close to 25 years ago as far as we could recall. Melvin was with me from the humble beginnings of Chef Ted Catering in the Tri-Delt house at UVa. His hard work and total dedication led from that humble beginning to epic catering jobs at such places as the Law School above. When Melvin's smiling face hit that door, people, dozens of people, would give this man heartfelt hugs. How rare is it in this cut-throat business for that many people to LOVE the catering help?

Melvin, not once in those decades, ever once complained about the thankless, back breaking 16 hour days....EVER. On big jobs that occasionally required the use of the refrigerated reefer above, Melvin was the man to oversee the unloading of the literally tons of goodies.

My God, how that man ran the Shimmy Club. Hip Hop, R&B, Trance, Cumbia, Norteno, Oldies..... oh man, the mud, the blood and the beer. Not mentioning, ahem, explaining said situations to the Charlottesville Police officers that would arrive on the scene from time to time and with whom Melvin had grown up with.

 I sit now in this jungle town bakery and consider Melvin. Melvin's last two years were not pretty and I wonder why this world this shithole works like that. I ponder the nature of owner/employee relationships, how Melvin did the heavy lifting and I got most of the money. I ponder that Melvin is dead and I am in Hawaii. If there is any justice to this universe, Melvin is in the real Paradise. I can't tell you the hours we spent together, riding in the catering truck early in the morning, late at night and bit by bit I heard his story. 

Melvin grew up in now shabby chic Charlottesville,Virginia at a time of 1950's segregated everything. He had nine brothers and sisters who often slept in the same bed as youngsters. There was no running water and meals were cooked on a wood burning bucket contraption. "Meals" were pots of potatoes and collard greens with sidemeat. He talked about being scared of the rats that frequented the outhouse at night, so he would hold it until dawn. African-Americans only school stopped at the 9th grade.

Most blacks in Charlottesville were descended in one way or another from illustrious slave owners of the likes of Thomas Jefferson et al. and they grew up in shanty towns like Vinegar Hill surrounded by wealthy horse farms, vineyard owners and privileged white University of Virginia students (like me). Their choices for employment were janitorial or food service. One way out was to become a Pullman porter and although older than Melvin, I feel lucky to have worked with these old timers before they passed away. The Train I Ride

One day when Melvin was about 19, a bunch of white hooligans jumped him and tried to give him a good old ass whipping for the crime of being a nigger in the wrong neighborhood. Melvin stabbed one of them and ran the rest off. Who eventually goes to big boy prison over the matter?........Melvin of course. This prison experience of constant banging and screaming, assaults and living in a closet cell with a real murderer (almost three years) so shook Melvin that he vowed to do whatever it took to never go back.

There was/still is a lot of controversy concerning the demolition of Vinegar Hill. Like many American cities in the 60's and 70's, whites had fled to the suburbs and built giant air-conditioned shopping malls with plenty of parking. As a result the inner cities fell into decline and festered with crime, closed stores and poverty. Do-gooders declared Vinegar Hill a shanty town and it was bulldozed in the mid 1960's. The Westhaven Housing Project was built nearby in the name of urban renewal. This forced displacement with little or no involvement or representation was also the destruction of African-American businesses and economic life, which led to the breaking of cultural, social and familial ties.

One night we were catering a party in a very clubby old school room in the University of Virginia's old school Alderman Library. By chance, they were displaying these pictures, history and comment as to prophetically remember this troubling past. Melvin ended up crying as he looked at the above pictures and more. It was the first time in his life he had ever seen pictures of his vanquished neighborhood....his family surely did not have a scrapbook to record their upbringing.

Another night we were catering the re-opening of a long neglected old school movie theater. The mover and shaker money class had gotten together and propelled the renaissance of all but abandoned downtown into flat out gentrification. I hesitate to use the word gentrification because of it negative connotations because what we now have is better. I remember the downtown mall in the late 1970's and it was a hodgepodge of empty storefronts, single men weekly occupancy hotel  flophouse rooms, alkies and generally scary people. In the article below, a child of one of the "pioneers" back into downtown referred a trip to her mom's business at the time as a "wino-safari". To read about the hipsterization of the of the downtown area click here: The Generation that Created the Downtown Mall Scene 



Yes, most would say that it is better now, but as Melvin looked out on the 99% white crowd of the downtown of today (above), sharing $9 herbal infusions, and thought it was better than the old pool hall neighborhood, where he knew everybody and everybody knew him, he kept it to himself.

The pool hall pictured above is the one that Melvin fondly remembered getting his ass whupped by some older boys. "Vinegar Hill wasn't much as far as neighborhoods go, but it was our neighborhood", he mused on occasion.

But I digress from the renovated theater. They had not finished the whole building. The front of the house was beautifully done and the tinkling of champagne glasses and the munching of smoked salmon on blinis continued before the speakers and feature presentation. The back of the house, in the area behind the new stage was basically untouched since it was built in 1912, construction debris and old stagecraft paraphernalia was littered about. As we put the final dollop of scallion sour cream on another tray of blinis, Melvin pointed up at a sign that was painted on the wall, obviously unchanged from 1912.

It read: COLORED ENTRANCE ONLY. 

Melvin explained, without a trace of bitterness, how this was the back door entrance for African-Americans in his younger days and they had to sit in the balcony. He reminisced of sneaking in here to see the black entertainers of the day that were on what was then called the chittlin' circuit. Who knows, maybe James Brown and Otis Redding were some of them.

Melvin and I (and Fernando and Miguel, but they are another story for another day) passed ~18 years in this kitchen. One thing I always admired about him was his attitude. We would spend hours preparing the food here, then jump in the truck  and head out to the gig. In spite of some our more challenging dickhead customers asking Melvin to do sometimes asinine things like pick up a million goose feathers around a lake minutes before the guests arrived, he never lost that smile.

In spite of catering for some of the richest people in the county as he and his family moved from one sub-standard housing unit to another, he never lost his happiness. If there was ever an example of not having much materially, but everything spiritually, it was Melvin.

I attended Melvin's family Thanksgiving at our Shimmy Club. Even though I was the boss man, they made me feel welcome. How could I forget Mrs. Bernice leading the Electric Glide with Melvin as the caboose and 40 of his family in between, laughing and hooting?

My three children all but grew up with Melvin. Above my daughter Caroline in the kitchen, still marvels at Melvin's one handed card shuffle that almost silently went....ttttttttt. Caroline and my ex-wife Hillary attended the funeral.

So here's to you Melvin Stinnie. RIP dude and enjoy that rest. No more paying room and board. When I see you next time, the first thing we are going to do is fire one up, like the old days my man.

Thanks for stopping by