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Sigma Chi house robbery in today’s Crime Log
Lady Vol hoops cruises past Carson-Newman
Thursday, November 4, 2010
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Cloudy with a 20% chance of rain HIGH LOW 59 42
Issue 54
PUBLISHED SINCE 1906 http://utdailybeacon.com
Vol. 115
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Gus Captain serves up ‘Good Times’ on Strip Robby O’Daniel Recruitment Editor Patrons of Gus’s Good Times Deli these days might ask where the Gus from the sign is. The store’s namesake, Gus Captain, is still around for football gamedays, but he has passed on the business to co-owners Aaron Hale and Gerald Nelson. Nelson has worked at Gus’s since the mid-1980s, and Hale has worked at the deli on Cumberland Avenue since 1993. The story of Gus’s begins with another deli on Cumberland Avenue. Sam and Andy’s Deli set up shop from 1946 to 1996 at the location where McAlister’s Deli is now, Hale said. Captain had family ties within Sam and Andy’s ownership, and when the building that would become Gus’s became available, his family let him know about it. So Captain stopped driving taxicabs in Miami, Fla., and began Gus’s on March 13, 1981. The story of how Hale got involved with the establishment is also rooted in family ties. Gus’ son, John Captain, owns the National Fitness Center, Hale said, and Hale’s stepbrother worked at the center. Hale himself was between jobs, and he heard that Gus’s needed a delivery driver. At the time, Hale, who grew up about 30 minutes from campus in North Knoxville, did not even know how to cook. His only related experience was working at Subway when he was 16. But now he can cook everything on the menu. “We don’t write anything down, so it’s all memory,” Hale said. “It’s kind of hard at first. There’s no computer screens. It’s all just straight memory.” Now Hale, 36, has cooked the signature Gus’ burgers for 17 years, and he said most people working there have worked for at least five years there. “It’s not just some kid off the street cooking a hamburger,” he said. The learning curve gets less steep with the hours Hale puts in. Hale’s only off day is Sunday. He works double shifts on Friday and Saturday, bringing his total work week to about 70 hours. But for him, working six days a week is just normal. “I just always have,” he said. “Because everybody works a lot here.” Hale and Nelson’s small staff features three delivery drivers and three other workers who cook and clean up. Two are part-
George Richardson• The Daily Beacon
Bill Phillips, left, and Ajitpaul Mangat, right, both second-year masters of accounting students in English, enjoy a late lunch in Gus’s Good Times Deli Wednesday, Nov. 3. Since 1981, Gus’s has remained open until the wee hours of night to satisfy the late night meal cravings for students on campus. time, and the rest work full-time. And on gameday, the work day just keeps going. “On a gameday, you don’t ever leave,” he said. “... It’s like an 18-hour day.” But Gus’s, just like many other establishments on the Strip, puts a lot of stock into gameday sales to make up for the dead time of summer and Christmas. “(There’s) just about four months a year when we don’t do any business,” he said. Those Knoxville Utilities Board bills are high, he said, and so is rent.
The expense of operating a business on campus and the lack of parking are major drawbacks, he said. “You got to depend on a lot of students for business, a lot of foot traffic,” he said. So Gus’s throws everything behind football season, but even that can backfire, such as during the recent woes of the Tennessee football team. “When the team sucks, then the business sucks, and you don’t have any control over that,” he said. But even when the team is not doing as good and business is poorer, Gus’s still depends on gameday sales to cover the four-month drought of sales. Moreover, Gus’s embrace of sport is what appealed to Hale in the first place. “I like sports,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I liked working here because all the sports memorabilia and how sports-based everything is.” Sports photos of key athletes and Tennessee legends cake the restaurant’s walls. And it is not all for show. A plethora of figures, including former Tennessee players and NFL stars Peyton Manning and Reggie White, had regular meals at Gus’s. White had the polish-sausage sandwich with eggs. Manning’s favorite was a chicken breast sandwich and a baked potato. In fact, Manning still stops by. He got a hamburger on the day of the first UT football game in 2009, Hale said. Even with poor outcomes, football season is still the best time of the year for business. Hale said the economy is also to blame for poor sales. “That hurts the business late night,” he said. But people still stop in for Gus’s famous hamburgers, the deli’s most popular dish. A cheeseburger, fries and a fountain drink costs $8.19 with tax. One of those patrons is Rob Goodman, senior in physics, who enjoys the staple hamburger. “It’s my favorite hamburger joint, easily the best around,” Goodman said. Other dishes include deli sandwiches, philly cheesesteaks, fried chicken sandwiches and tuna salad sandwiches. Hale said the biggest thing he’s taken away from working at Gus’s for 17 years is how to communicate with people. “Some people you have to deal with in different ways,” he said. Usually those ways include conversations about football — whether it’s about black uniforms on Halloween or UT’s recent double-overtime victory over the University of AlabamaBirmingham, there’s always a big topic of the day at Gus’s.
Guest professor lectures on WWII Peter Fritzsche paints picture of manipulated German psyche Blair Kuykendall Copy Editor Professor Peter Fritzsche from the University of Illinois joined UT faculty and students Tuesday to deliver a thought-provoking lecture on Germany during World War II. His lecture posed a central, controversial question: “Was It Possible to Hate the Nazis and Love the Third Reich?” He delved into the various facets of the notorious regime’s impact on German citizens, exploring the population’s inability to rebel against the insidious regime. Fritzsche was well received by an enthusiastic history department. “It’s my great pleasure to introduce Dr. Peter Fritzsche,” Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, professor of history, said. “The presentation today is funded by our wonderful program in the humanities that allows students to read some of a notable professor’s work and then interact with that scholar later on in the semester. It is a wonderful chance for students to interact with leaders in their future fields.” Fritzsche was prompt in his commencement, ready to dive into the area of his lecture’s premise. “I hope it will become clear what I mean by my somewhat poignant question, after I have presented my thesis,” Fritzsche began. He opened his lecture with an anecdote that highlighted the propaganda enlisted by the Third Reich. The scene took place at a truck stop in Dresden, Germany, as one of Hitler’s radio broadcasts droned on about the success of Hitler’s regime and its operations. The patrons of the restaurant largely ignored it, as they went about eating, drinking and playing cards. This anecdote was used to illustrate the general German population’s opinion of Hitler’s regime. They supported the Third Reich to redeem their country’s unity and prosperity, not out of love for Hitler. Scholars today debate over German opinions of the Nazi regime, some claiming support for the regime developed over time and some claiming it waned as time went on. “I want to present three case studies of citizens in Germany, to give a picture of the extent of Third Reich support in Germany, even in the face of doubt regarding the Nazis,” Fritzsche said. His first subject was a man at the age of 32, who could not stand the ideals of the Hitler regime. He felt exceedingly isolated as many of his fellow Germans bought into the Hitler lies and Nazi doctrines. “The Nuremburg Laws that indoctrinated the persecution of the Jews were particularly repugnant to him,” Fritzsche said. The young man eventually conceded that a
new era had begun, however, he desired to be part of the new political community. “He would later weep for joy at the ‘union’ of Germany and Austria,” Fritzsche said. “He hated the Nazis, but he loved the Third Reich.” He also told of a young girl, who early on was a Nazi supporter. She recounted her excitement over new cloth to make a Hitler jacket for her 14th birthday. “The positive feeling of living in a new country, deeply wounded, but picking itself up again, was all consuming,” Fritzsche said. She was overjoyed by emotional displays during one of the German regimes “elections,” when men and women came from everywhere to be a part of the new Third Reich. “Germans had been dispersed, but were coming back together,” Fritzsche said. Women at home in Germany took a scandalized view of their battle loses, unified in their loss of young soldiers. They became desperate upon German losses and uncertain as to the future of their country. Faced with subjugation once more at the unraveling of the empire during the close of World War II, the German people held on to their one glimpse of freedom under the Third Reich. “In the eyes of the German people, the German soldiers were besieged heroes, who were falling at the gates of Stalingrad pursuing national viability,” Fritzsche said. The people became all the more close to the Third Reich on the threat of failure, even while they acknowledged the possible “mistakes” of the Nazi party’s actions. “Many Germans began to realize that the country had committed a great crime, but they did not want to see their nation defeated,” Fritzsche said. “In the shock of impending defeats, the Germans were anxious to bury the crimes against Jews, Gypsies and others, to preserve the nation.” Eventually, however, they would turn on Hitler, still clinging to the national ideals of unity that were rapidly slipping away. “It took a great effort to be a Nazi, to recast morality,” Fritzsche said. Fritzsche used the story of one German novelist who fought as a soldier to portray the success of Nazi use of indoctrination. Writing to comfort one of his relatives on the loss of their son, the novelist said there was no greater honor than to die in the conquest of the Reich’s goals, even if it was because of incompetent decisions of the Nazi regime. The soldier debated the idea of euthanasia, concluding he was opposed to it, but denied the possibility the Reich could fall. He wrote of the hard and bitter trials of his time at Stalingrad, hating to think that his sacrifice was in vain. See NAZI LECTURE on Page 3
George Richardson • The Daily Beacon
A car drives up the crowded ramp leading to the outer levels of Neyland Stadium on Wednesday, Nov. 3. The pedestrian ramp, which also occasionally serves parking duties, is slated to be torn down to make room for a large plaza, where a large statue of Gen. Robert Neyland will stand.