Whine and Dine

“A Brad Meyer Reunion”

Brad Meyer and I had breakfast together this morning at the 105 Café in Conroe.  The café used to have Brad’s restaurant review posted on their bulletin board. Tom (the owner) must’ve finally gotten around to reading the thing. – I joke. It was a good review.

Brad and I used to eat out a bunch together, but that was back when Brad would pay for my meal. As I alluded to in the first paragraph, Brad was once the newspaper’s restaurant reviewer/news reporter.

It was his restaurant review column I was interested in… but only after he called me up and asked for me to help him. Brad thought his column needed a lift; a shtick, if you will. Monday night football had Don Meredith. Brad ended up with me.  I have no idea how many people turned him down before he gave me the call.

Truth be told, Brad didn’t like me back then. He thinks I’m swell now, but back then he considered me stuck up. He came to that conclusion one night while at the Crighton interviewing the cast of “A Christmas Story.”  (The one where the kid wanted a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas.) During the interviews, I made it a point to stay in the background. While I just love the daylights out of notoriety, I hate to chase it.

I actually thought the children were the ones who needed the attention. The kids and the director, Don Hampton, who kept kids and adults under control during rehearsals. So, I pretty well stayed hidden during the interviews. Bottom, line, Mark, the very personification of humility, came across as “stuck-up.” 

But, let’s forget about judging others. When Brad asked me to help him out with his column, I jumped on the Brad Meyer Restaurant Review wagon. Together we formed a duo that would live in the diaries of both our wives, had they thought to keep diaries  

I’ve got to hand it to him, the new found  humor in Brad’s articles added tremendously to his success. That guy humiliated me even beyond my natural humility. He was mean. -- Yes, it’s true while at a ritzy restaurant I returned a dish of smoked salmon. I had no idea it was served cold, with a texture of raw fish. 

It wasn’t long before Brad and I decided to produce some ad-libbed videos of the  reviews.  I don’t know how many videos we put on YouTube, but it was several… and they’re still there. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mark+hayter+whine+and+dine

One thing about Brad, the guy was honest about his reviews. I just hate to upset people, but Brad called it like it was. He has a history of managing eating establishments and resorts, so he knows a lot about proper dining. I wouldn’t know proper dining if I was sitting on it. I know what I like and what I don’t; and I don’t like raw fish.

That kind of stuff played well in the videos we produced. We shot the segments on site, in Brad’s studio, and in the newsroom at The Courier. I liked the newsroom because I got to meet a lot the people who put the newspaper together. They’d scurry around while Brad I sat and chatted. I felt almost like one of ‘em.

Brad and I seemed to play off one another well, considering we don’t agree on much of anything. Brad is a man of the world. He’s been around the block a few times. (Take that anyway you want.) Me? I’ve only ventured to the edge of the driveway. Brad has so much stuff stored in his noggin, most of which makes for good story telling. Unfortunately, there are only a few of his stories I can share with others.

After all of that background on “The Brad and Mark story,” it had been a year since I last saw Brad. The last time we were together was just before Kay and I moved to Washington for six months. I was trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff before the move, so decided to give my electric smoker to Brad.  I paid $200 for the thing, and only used it five times. I couldn’t get it to smoke. After giving it to Brad, I ran across instructions that said to only used shaved wood. I had been using chunks of wood. Ah.

When we got back from Washington, I didn’t communicate with Brad until a few weeks ago when he sent me an e-mail asking me to take back my old smoker. I reminded him that when he agreed to take it off my hands it was a  “No backs” agreement. No one can renege on a “No backs.”

After a couple of other e-mail exchanges, we decided to eat breakfast together. That’s where we were at the beginning of this article.  

While at the 105 Café, Brad and I talked of old times and what all we had been doing the year we were not in contact. Brad didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the “Acknowledgement” I gave him in my book, “The Summer of 1976.” (Now available on-line from Amazon Books. You might want to make a note of that.) 

After our meal and carafe of coffee, the waitress brought the check. She had forgotten to give us separate checks as I had instructed.  Brad immediately grabbed the check and said, “I’ve got this.” I would’ve fought him for it, but I hate to draw attention to myself. Hopefully, I’ve made that clear.

end

Mark can be contacted at hayter.mark@gmail.com.