Warwick's |
|---|
 |
Υπο κατασκευή UNDER CONSTRUCTION |
|
|---|---|---|
George Panteleakis works with his daughter, Eleni, and his son, Constantine, who now runs Timmy's Family Restaurant. The father opens every morning but Sunday, and then is free for the rest of the day. The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy |
Ο Γιώργος Παντελεάκης ( Χανάς) με την κόρη του Ελένη και τον γιο του Κώστα ο οποίος και έχει την διαχείριση του οικογενειακού τους εστιατορίου "Timmy's". Ο Πατέρας ανοίγει κάθε πρωί εκτός από την Κυριακή | |
WARWICK, R.I. -- Birds provide the background melody in the private place behind Timmy's Family Restaurant on busy West Shore Road. Their song complements the soft fall of water from a fountain in the center of a tenderly cultivated garden, lush green and beginning to bloom in the springtime warmth. This is where you will find George Panteleakis after his early morning shift at the restaurant he bought nearly three decades ago. This is where he spends the fair-weather days, here in his garden and his screened gazebo with its TV and photographs that chronicle his long life. A gas grill is next to the gazebo, which is next to his house. "My kids come over here most weekends, everybody together," says Panteleakis. "That's why I make the gazebo: to protect from the flies and the mosquitoes, you know? I cook up there, I serve us over here. It's very easy for me." Panteleakis points out his dogwood, honeysuckle, grape, lemon and his cherished fig plants, imported from Greece, where he was born in 1933. Roses bloom along his driveway, near his four-year-old Cadillac, shiny and clean, but dusted today with fresh pollen. His vegetables occupy another corner of the property, across the street from an American Legion post, which he visits some evenings for a beer or two with friends. He apologizes for his English, which in truth is perfectly understandable, if accented. He spoke only Greek when he arrived in America in 1968 with his wife and four children, the youngest, last of three girls, just six months old. |
||
 |
||
George Panteleakis, who owns the popular restaurant Timmy's on West Shore Road, in Warwick, finds peace in his gazebo, where photos of his late wife and family bring back memories. The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy |
||
"I come over here and I cannot even read the paper. 'I don't understand English: I'm going to learn,' I say. I try." He succeeded. The first years, he washed dishes and floors in his brother's Cranston restaurant. "I work every day, 75 dollars a week, and I do all right. My family OK: We don't have everything we want, but we're not hungry. This country give all opportunity we want. But I work. I work every day." In the mid-1970s, Panteleakis opened his own business, a fish-and-chips joint on Cranston's Park Avenue. In 1982, he bought Timmy's, established 1974, as the menus still proclaim. His wife, Vasiliki - Kiki, as she was called - worked alongside him. The children helped when they were of age. Today, son Constantine runs Timmy's; a daughter, Eleni, still works several shifts a week. The father now opens every morning but Sunday, and then is free for the rest of the day. Panteleakis steps into his gazebo, closing the door behind him; good weather brings bugs, along with flowers. His TV is on the wall to one side of a plastic table and chairs; a clock and a thermometer, instruments useful for both business and garden, have a large presence. Photographs abound: his wife, his four children, old friends, his native village, which is near the ancient city of Sparta. He and Kiki married there, in 1958. They are handsome and smiling in their black-and-white wedding picture. The world promised wonderful possibilities to them then. "This is not America - this is small village, where one knows the other one. I know her from baby; she's four, five years younger than me." |
||
He is speaking in present tense of things long past. "We know where we go, you know what I mean? Over here now, boyfriend and girlfriend -- three, four years, go together. They get married and get divorced after that. We don't believe that. We know the people. We know the family. We know where she come from. I like her, she likes me, we get married. We have a family." On Sept. 20, 2000, Kiki died of ovarian cancer. She was 62. He misses her, he says, "a lot." And then he repeats: "A lot." |
 |
|
A wedding photo shows Panteleakis and his late wife, Vasiliki, who worked with him. Courtesy of the Family |
||
"Because she's good for everything. She's good for mother, for grandmother, for housekeeper. The best. She knows how to cook any kind of Greek food, she knows all Greek pastries - everything, everything. But I don't miss her because she knows everything. I miss her because she's a nice girl, a nice woman." He points to a photo taken the year after they married. "That's her," he says, "with my first baby." They named her Georgia, after Panteleakis' mother. "My life was beautiful up to the day I lost my wife," he says. "I have a lot of good times, I have all my sport - I like hunting and fishing - I go all over. I'm very, very happy, I have good friends. But after I lost my wife.." His voice trails off. He hears of people like him who remarry. "I said I don't want to," he says. "I want to stay with my kids and that's it. I have good kids, good family. That's why I stay like it is, you know." Inside Timmy's, his son is preparing for lunch and dinner. Fish and chips, only $7.95, are the house specialty, a reminder of a dream born in Sparta and first realized on Park Avenue in Cranston, Rhode Island, 4,700 miles away. After filling the bird feeders and watering the garden, Panteleakis will drop by to greet loyal customers. As the heat of the day approaches, he will disappear back into his gazebo. "I have my pictures," he says. "I remember my best life here." First in a series from The Providence Journal www.projo.com |
||