Gheorgemas Day Ten: Requiem for a 10 year Old Friend and a Historic Road House

Last November, I attended a celebration of life for my childhood friend Jamie.


Jamie and I go back to fourth grade, and truly became tight when he got stuck at my house during the Flood of 85 for a few November days, until the roads were cleared for him to go home. 

Photo of Flooding in November 1985. Roanoke Memorial Hospital is on the right. Victory Stadium on the left. 

The following spring, we moved from the old neighborhood (where I live today) to near where Jamie lived , out in the ‘burbs, where the yards were bigger, there were woods to play in, vines to swing from, and lots of kids my age around. I vividly remember joining an excursion of fifth and sixth graders to investigate a concrete stormwater drainage tunnel that ran under the neighborhood for about a quarter of a mile, mainly because some of the more badass kids were smoking cigarettes as we explored the subterranean landscape.

Jamie’s dad owned (still does, but he’s trying to sell again) a bar called The Coffee Pot, known as Roanoke’s oldest roadhouse, recognized by the National Registry of Historic Places. When we were growing up, they would often have holiday or birthday parties at “The Pot” during the day, so I knew my way around that bar from a young age, and have lots of memories from the place. If you Gheorghies will indulge me, I’m going to share a few of my memorable scenes from The Coffee Pot in honor of my departed pal Jamie.

The Coffee Pot in 2021

Scene 1 - Fall 1985 (After the Ball Game)

Victory Stadium in Roanoke. Build in 1942. Demolished in 2006.

Jamie’s dad Carroll picked us up from a high school football game at the now defunct Victory Stadium one Friday night. On the way home, we stopped by the bar. Who did 10 year old Rootsy spot at the bar upon entering? My aunt and a friend, seated at the end of the bar where they collected the empty long neck bottles. I snuck up behind and asked “Aunt Doolie, did you drink all those beers?”. It seemed like a good joke at the time, but with the perspective of adulthood, I realize it may have been a bit jarring for her to have her pipsqueak nephew show up at the bar at 10pm on a Friday.

Scene 2- Thanksgiving 1996 (Nuts. Hot Nuts, Get ‘em from the Peanut Man)

Doug Clark and The Hot Nuts. 

I’ve referenced this one before, but much like the discourse OBFT, it’s time to share the same old story again.

For many years, Doug Clark and The Hot Nuts would play Thanksgiving Night at The Coffee Pot. The frat party band that started in the early 1960s concluded their recording career at that decade’s end, but kept taking their dirty ditties on the road for several more decades. It was always a fun time to knock back beers with old friends, while the weathered old party band play their dirty old chestnuts like “My Ding a Ling”, "Big Jugs" , "He's Got the Whole World by the Balls", "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box", "The Bearded Clam", "Gay Caballero", and "Two Old Maids".


Another feature of a Hot Nuts show was a chance for audience participation. People would get in line to hop up on the stage and recite a limerick. Aside from hearing about the ‘Man from Nantucket’ often, these audience limericks were usually a bit lacking in quality, compared to the raunch the band was bringing on their own. 

 Shortly before Thanksgiving ‘96, in the shower at Unit M, a bolt of inspiration struck me, and I conceived of a limerick that I thought was sufficiently bawdy to take on stage with the Hot Nuts. When the night came, I shook off my tryptophan haze and headed to the pot. I got in a fairly long line of limerick sharers, certain that I had the goods. I confidently delivered my filthy limerick, and got a great response from the house. Jamie was at a table right by the stage, and I still remember his delight at my turn on stage.

Scene 3 - June 2012 (Another Smoky Night in the Roadhouse)

Sammy Suede and the Strays, c 2012

Perhaps I was getting the 15 year itch to get back on stage at “The Pot”, cause I booked two bands I was in to play a Saturday night there. We did a set with our jug band, and another with our short lived country band, Sammy Suede and the Strays. The night was still fairly young when we realized we had a problem - folks were not flooding in the door to see and hear us. We knew there was some resistance to the place, which over decades had developed a reputation as a biker bar that is not very welcoming to outsiders. Add the fact that smoking is still allowed, and we were left playing to the small crowd we mustered and their regulars. As we were loading out, one of the staff members said to me “I heard we had a jug band tonight, and I was sure I was going to hate y’all, but you’re really good!”. Uhh, thanks I guess, but glad to know the knives were out for us before we even arrived.

Scene 4 - November 2024 (Memorial Service for Jamie, gone too soon)

Jamie and his Pops in the middle, with a couple of classmates from the old neighborhood.

I was schoolmates with Jamie through middle school, and I think high school for a short time. He did a stints at boarding school and a private school here in Roanoke, and maybe more. His wandering spirit persisted into adulthood, and I’d hear regularly that he was somewhere new, doing something new. The first one I remember was that he was painting murals for rich old ladies in Florida. Later he was married with a kid in Nashville. Then divorced and selling cars in Montana. Next it was back to Roanoke to start up a BBQ business with a local restaurant owner, before heading to Arizona to work a job in the mortgage industry for a spell. I’m probably missing some iterations, but you get the idea. He moved back to town after the pandemic and seemed to be settling into domestic life with a woman he loved and her kids, who he considered his own. He coached the kids in sports and constantly posted about their progress, as well as pictures of his "lady bird" dripping with sentiment about how lucky he was to land such a stunner.


Apparently there were some forces working against the rosy pictures Jamie was posting on his social media. We learned that he had passed, and it soon became evident that he’d taken himself off the ride. A memorial gathering was planned at The Coffee Pot, naturally. Having served as a venue for kid’s birthday and Christmas parties, a memorial service seemed similarly incongruous. The service took place at 2:00 pm on a Sunday, and the bar’s handful of regulars were knocking back beers in their football jerseys while several hundred mourners gathered to remember Jamie. On a few occasions the pigskin revelers had to be told “Keep it down, we’re having a memorial service in this bar!”

Memorial services for people who leave too soon are always a special kind of sad, and it was obvious that Jamie’s absence would leave a real void among those gathered to remember him. One of the mourners I saw that day was my childhood best friend’s mom Tricia, who I learned has early stage dementia and had recently sold their longtime house to move closer to their oldest son. “I miss my house”, Tricia confided in me. I assured her that every time I see that house, it brings me memories of her and the family she raised in its walls. I’m not sure when I’ll step back inside The Coffee Pot, but just driving by it brings back a flood of 40 years of memories.

If any Gheorghies want to buy the bar and restore it to glory, I’ll put my filthy limerick onto a cross stitch to put above the urinal in the men’s room.