Written by John Kass, November 13, 2005
Chicago Tribune
I can't say if Dan McCauley, a North Side restaurant owner, is America's new Mr. Belvedere, though clearly there is a Belvederian yearning in our culture these days. And McCauley may be the man for the job.McCauley, owner of A Taste of Heaven restaurant, was fed up with shrieking, bratty kids climbing on his fixtures or flopping on the floor blocking waitresses carrying pots of hot coffee, while the parents remained relaxed and infuriatingly indifferent.So he put up a subversive sign: "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven."I support him in this, and so should anyone who gives a fig for decency. When I was a kid and dared misbehave in a restaurant, my mom didn't give me a taste of heaven. She'd give me a taste of something else. But now we are fixed in the age of the bureaucrat, and pleas for common courtesy must first be written down and properly displayed.Some moms were terribly insulted by the sign and called a boycott. And four things happened.1) The Chicago Tribune published a story on the restaurant-angry mommy debate in September.2) The New York Times ran a similar story in November, but much longer.3) Talk radio hosts put angry boycotting moms on the air to tell how they're sick and tired of "those people" without kids being increasingly intolerant of little children who make noise when they're hungry. Other moms called in to severely chastise the boycotting moms, saying if they can't control their little monsters, then just keep them chained in the basement where they belong. Dads, as usual, wisely kept their mouths shut.4) And the restaurant owner's business tripled."It's true," said McCauley, whose establishment is in Chicago's upscale Andersonville neighborhood."Our business has gone up. It's unbelievable. It's tripled. A lot of people are frustrated about this, and so here we are. Some people don't realize they have to live by the rules of the rest of the community. I was only asking for some common courtesy."The boycott hasn't ruined you?"No," he said. "As a matter of fact, there must be 12 to 15 kids in here now. Listen, we're getting calls from Amsterdam and New Zealand. They're all applauding this."All we're asking for is courtesy," McCauley said. "I really care about the breakdown in the culture. For me, it's almost a cause. And I don't like people using their cell phones, either."He's right about the cell phones and the culture, and the decline of the West is one of my favorite topics. So if you're reading this at brunch on Sunday in a restaurant in an upscale urban neighborhood, with kids rampant, the decline of the West is best illustrated this way:By the pain in your kidneys coming from other people's children kicking the back of your booth, and that wan "What's your problem?" look their parents offer you as their kids bounce another ice cube off your forehead.Better not take offense. Their parents are probably lawyers. The kids will grow up to push people out of the way for everything, including Communion on Sunday. When they attain power, they'll probably turn every adult now over 30 into salty, digestible crackers, when the crude oil runs out and they're tired of subsidizing our Social Security.Or, what's most likely, they'll grow up to be just like the rest of us.McCauley sounds almost like the new Mr. Belvedere, to me. And every so often, America creates a new Mr. Belvedere.Years ago, in one of the humor magazines, they created a Belvederian comic strip called "Politeness Man." He demanded proper manners from everyone, and he backed it up with an iron handkerchief that he flicked against the noggins of youthful offenders, without killing them.But like I said, the parents of these kids are probably lawyers.Mr. Belvedere was popularized in an ancient movie by the late actor Clifton Webb. Webb's Belvedere played a strict nanny to a pack of spoiled, rich brats. Through an inhuman force of will, he trained the little monsters to eat properly at the table, piercing them with withering looks if they dared slide silverware across their teeth. In no time, the children had their left hands in their laps, engaging in polite dinner conversation about literature and foreign policy and the decline of the West.The newly nice kids loved Mr. Belvedere for teaching them right from wrong. Parents loved him too.Naturally, he was a fictional character. If he were real, he'd be ridiculed, sued into the poorhouse for imposing his rigid ways on the rest of us. As a dad, I can't tell people how to raise their kids. We have massive bureaucracies in the federal, state and local governments spending billions of dollars a year doing just that, and nobody listens to them either.But they just might listen to a Mr. Belvedere.
