Whittle: What triggers friendships?

By DAN WHITTLE

What triggers a friendship?

We're not talking casual acquaintances, but bone-deep friends you trust with heart and confidentiality.

Friend Phyllis Reuhland graciously reminded friends recently, it has been four years since Dr. Leon Reuhland lost his battle with cancer at age 77.

An early-morn phone call to my former newsroom desk back in 1991 launched a relationship that sustained until Doc Reuhland's death.

"Is this Dan Whittle?" phone inquirer asked for confirmation.

"Depends on whether you're friend or foe," I responded smart-aleck-like, because five minutes earlier, I'd already taken a cussin' (cursing) over the same phone to get the day off to an exciting start.

What happened next was my introduction to one of the greatest men I've encountered during my 50-plus-years of news-gathering adventures.

"This is Doc Reuhland in Woodbury, you've never met me, but I need your help," caller identified himself.

I kept listening as the doctor kept on talking ...

"Folks at York (VA Medical Center) refused to treat a very sick military veteran last night," Doc diagnosed. "Would you accompany today out to the VA hospital?"

I was to learn Doc Reuhland typically spoke in calm measured tones, but his angst came through loud and clear during his call.

While motoring toward York VA Medical Center, Doc and I agreed he would not initially identify me, except by name.

But upon receiving a huge load of mumbo-jumbo non-sense bureaucratic excuses, Doc Reuhland finally disclosed that this "newspaperman sitting here beside me now has some questions."

Doc got his ailing veteran admitted to the VA hospital that same day.

Doc Reuhland was a compassionate "man's man" who served for years as coroner of Cannon County. And he befriended hundreds of law enforcement professionals ... at "no charge" for all of the above.

Fast forward to the present!

Next super friend is of Greek descent with a name - "Kritsidemos" - so long that for purposes of this forum, we're whittling it down to "Demos" as in Demos Steak & Spaghetti House.

Restaurant general manager Tiffany and other employees have shortened it even more, down to: Mr. "D."

The Kritsidemos name was initially shortened to "Demos" when Jim's father, Pete, and uncles crossed the ocean early last century to settle and open restaurants in Birmingham, Ala.

That tradition carried over to the late 1980s when Jim and Doris opened "Demos Steak & Spaghetti House" in Mur-freesboro.

But even the shortened version was too long for me and some other Southern boys to pronounce correctly: Many of us jarred down on all the syllables: "DEEEEE MOSE," heavy on the "O"!

"We've never cared how 'Demos' was pronounced," Jim recalls. "...as long as folks kept coming back for more food and service."

Like Doc Reuhland, it was frustration, but frustration of a different flavor that launched my family's on-going friendship with the Demos' family.

Shortly after Demos' doors first opened, I went there looking for a friend to have lunch with. When friend was a no show, I walked out. Two days later, the scene was repeated.

But the "third time" brought positive results ...

"As a new eatery, Doris and I were counting each customer as a God-send in order to keep the doors open," Chef Jim cooked back in time. "We could not figure out what was with this man with the funny-looking hats to enter and then exit, not once, but twice, without ordering any food."

On my third trip, I finally ordered Jim's famous brown butter garlic spaghetti ... the same dish, I was to learn, the smooth-working Jim had used to propose and take wife Doris permanently out of the torturous hot cotton patches of Alabama.

Little did we know 25-plus years later, the Whittles and Demos' restaurant family, along with Toot's Restaurant, have helped raise thousands of dollars through our annual charity billed as "Whittlemania," initially for construction of 17 Habitat homes in Murfreesboro, Smyrna and La Vergne in the 1990s.

When Whittlemania was resurrected by Peter, Felicia and Jim two years ago, more than $40,000 has been raised in operational funds for the beautiful Tennessee Fisher House that benefits military families of veterans with free lodging and meals while ailing or wounded veterans are being treated at York VA or Nashville VA facilities.

It certainly was understandable a few years ago when the Chamber of Commerce crowned friend Jim with the coveted "Business Legend of the Year" title.