Electronic Wizard, and Little Professor. We raced radiocontrolled Lamborghinis through the aisles, tried our hand at Aurora Air Hockey, had a shootout with Nerf Rockets. We tested our agility with the Jaws Game, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and the Blip the Digital Game. He liked leaving the toys on and soon the store was abuzz with the sound effects of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, along with the highpitched whistle of a Casey Jones Musical Train and the occasional Bronx cheer from an offended toy. Suddenly, the store grew quiet, and I could not find Marc. Then I saw him in the back of the store leaning over a model railroad layout. I knew Marc was an amateur model railroader — in fact, one of his signature touches at Ham’s was an elevated train up near the ceiling circling the restaurant. He turned on the transformer and we watched the tiny train meander through the small town below. He loved blowing the train’s horn and watching the warning gates come down with a ring. “You know, I’m making the most money off all the newfangled futuristic stuff, but this is actually my favorite thing in the whole store. Doesn’t this little town remind you of Greensboro? Quiet, every place very reachable in just a few minutes . . . Well, we aren’t going to remain this sleepy little town much longer.” He shook his head. “Greensboro is about to make a giant step toward big-city life if it passes liquor-by-the-drink. Now, I’ll put liquor-by-the-drink in Ham’s if it passes because it’ll mean money in my pockets. It’ll be great for restau-
Gate City Journal
rant businesses. But I don’t know if I’m going to vote for it or not. I have nothing against it, except it seems the final progression to whatever it is that Greensboro is going to become. It could be good, it could be bad.” When Marc finally achieved his great success with Ham’s he did not rename the place, never thought about putting his name in big letters on the building. No, instead, he put a billboard atop the building with a giant picture of himself. “I think I’m smiling, looking down at the passing traffic,” he chuckled. Marc died way too young (at age 50) in 1997. But every Christmas afternoon when I leave Bender’s Tavern and drive down Friendly toward my College Hill home, I pass Smyres Place and I can still almost hear the sweet click-clack of success coming from the Clacker Factory filled with his troupe of long-haired elves at their worktables. And always as I pass this spot, although the old Ham’s is gone, the place transformed into the Mad Hatter, I can still feel Marc Frieberg’s presence up there smiling down on the lively, restaurant-filled city he knew we would become and, as they say, we didn’t turn out so bad after all. OH Jim Clark, Director of the UNCG MFA Creative Writing Program, says he has had a lot of great teachers over the years. His favorite “classrooms” for learning simply how to live one’s life were Marc Freiberg’s Ham’s and the original Jay’s Deli in Friendly Shopping Center, headmastered by Sol Jacobs, a candidate for mayor of Greensboro in 1979.
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The Art & Soul of Greensboro
December 2016
O.Henry 47