July 09, 2003
REMEMBERING BUDDY
My friend Willie Drye, a one-man walking history of the Carolinas, sends this brush-with-fame recollection of Buddy Hackett. (Willie's book "Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 " comes out in paperback this month from National Geographic.):
It was the mid-'70s, and I was recently out of the Army and in school at UNC. Had a room on Franklin Street (Chapel Hill's main drag) across from the campus and five or six blocks from Fowler's Grocery, where I'd go once or twice a week for beer, frozen dinners, etc. Was in Fowler's one night, took a left at the end of the canned soup section, started down the next aisle, nearly bumped into this pudgy guy pushing a shopping cart. Looked up, and I thought "Jeez, that guy looks like Buddy Hackett."
If I remember correctly, he was pushing a grocery cart that was pretty well loaded. It so happened there was no one else on that aisle. I went down that aisle, turned right, and headed up the next aisle. There was Buddy again, only by now he'd been recognized by some of the other shoppers. And he didn't seem too happy about it, although he wasn't exactly incognito. I didn't hear what the first person who recognized him said to him, but whatever it was, Buddy launched into a stream of profanity-laced insults and whoever it was that spoke to him just stood there with this sickly smile frozen on her face as old Buddy sailed away with his shopping cart.
What was Buddy doing in Chapel Hill? I didn't ask him, but he was probably taking part in this famous rice diet program that once (and maybe still is) done at the Duke University med school. As you probably know, dear old Dook is only about 10 miles down U.S. 15-501 from Chapel Hill. It was, so I was told, extremely expensive to go through the rice diet program. Many tubby celebrities went through it in those days. The ricers often came to Chapel Hill. They were easily recognizable, anytime you saw a well-dressed middle-aged tubbo on Franklin Street, or a Mercedes that was sagging on the driver's side, you assumed they were ricers My guess is that Buddy was playing hookey from the rice diet program and had ducked into Fowler's to grab a few off-the-record carbs before heading back to Durham.
Anyway, Buddy caused quite a stir as he pushed his cart through Fowler's, and he was giving everybody absolute hell and you could watch their smiles morph into this look of stricken horror as they realized they were being sliced to pieces by the sharpest tongue they'd probably ever encounter, and they were powerless to protect themselves or even respond. I mean it was non-stop, take no prisoners. Buddy was talking out of the side of his mouth in that nasal, sort of high-pitched Noo Yawk accent, and he was cutting people down left and right. I wish I could remember some of the insults he flung at people, but, as I said, it was a long time ago and I wasn't taking notes. I will say this -- he was profanely articulate and funny, and he kept it up even as he went through the checkout line, and I just remember a lot of numb, silly smiles when he left, or, rather, made his exit.
So, bon voyage Buddy, and thanks for a memorable performance.
Bon voyage, indeed.