Another Bristol icon is gone. This time, apparently, forever. The Blue Circle restaurant has permanently closed. The big Blue Circle sign has even been dismantled.
My fellow Bristol Tennessee High School graduating classmates of 1976, Mike and June Marshall, owned and ran the Circle for decades on end - before Mike passed away in 2013.
One of the prime highlights of any visit to the highly popular local restaurant was listening to Mike Marshall while he flipped burgers. Mike (or 86 as he was known by close friends) filled many an order with a sprinkle or two of fun-loving, sarcastic banter poured toward his regular customers.
From the time I entered the Circle door til the time it closed behind me as I left, I knew I was in for more than just one type of treat. If Mike had ever taken a live stage with either David Letterman or Robin Williams at their “fun-loving sarcastic bantering best”, I feel sure he would have held his own.
When Mike passed away and June sold the business, a few hardy souls attempted a Blue Circle revival. Some of these business owners were more successful than others (notably Bristol’s Sourbeer family). I won’t detail here the honorable attempts made by at least three others to resuscitate the Circle at various times..
Heck, if I had the money and the time, I might even try to buy the Circle and make a go of it myself.
Since the Blue Circle was such a Bristol favorite for well over half a century, many a reader will likely have a “favorite” Blue Circle reminiscence or story. I will now briefly share a couple of my own favorite reminscences here. But hold onto your seat. If you don’t smile a bit while reading further, you should check your pulse, because you might be about ready to check out of this world and meet my old classmate, Mike Marshall (whom I feel would have duly appreciated the attempt I just made at fun sarcasm within this sentence).
My favorite Blue Circle stories/reminiscences took place over half a century ago. Here goes:
Back during my childhood, Bristol’s eternally tasty Blue Circle hamburgers were only a dime each. I think they might have gone up to fifteen cents by the time I reached high school. When lunchtime arrived at Tennessee High, a veritable slew of us would pack into a vehicle (no seat belt law yet) and scurry on down to the Circle to see how many burgers we could wolf down . . . and still make it back in time for the next class (well, most of the time).
We boys would eat a dozen . . . or more . . . if no girls were around. If girls came with us, we usually tempered it down to eight or nine. That was about the limit a teenage boy could eat during the allotted time, at least without resorting to our customary gustatory habits (which was mouth-wide-open, lip-smacking, belching-to-high-heaven, talk-while-you-chew mania).
Yes, those delectable, little palm-sized treats worked wonders at satisfying many a Bristolian’s cholesterol binge . . . this was a fact known far and wide. Perhaps a lesser known commodity of the Blue Circle burger was that it maintained an equal capacity for enhancing a golf bet.
My father, along with his good friend Ken “Doc” Messerole, who later became mayor of Bristol Tennessee, and I were all set to play golf together one morning at Tri-Cities Golf Course (this was sometime during my childhood.) Being the ultimate characters they both were, Dad and Doc bantered back and forth before the round even began, spouting toward each other a never-ending torrent of deadpan jabs. Each appeared dead set on demeaning the other’s soul to the bone.
You’d have thought they hated each other, the way they ripped each other apart with every spoken word. (By the way, as time has worked its wand on me, I’ve found that true friends among old men often appear to have a particular talent and liking for this type of mutual playful ridicule.)
At that time, Tri-Cities Golf Course offered a huge three dollar hamburger for sale (I think maybe fries came with it, but that was still a big fancy price back in the day).
So on the first nine holes of golf, Dad challenged Doc to play for a hamburger. It was agreed by both that the loser had to stand “foodless” at the restaurant bar and watch the winner eat his hamburger until he was through . . . and those hamburgers were BIG.
Now Doc was undoubtedly the better golfer between he and Dad. Doc shot par or less more often than not. But Dad “caught lightning with my putter”, as he called it, during that front nine. He beat Doc by a shot. Dad marched Doc on toward the clubhouse. Just before we entered the door, Dad stopped and stooped down to pull a miniature megaphone out of his golf bag.
Dad began to shout into the megaphone at the top of his lungs, “Everybody come now to the clubhouse restaurant! Watch Doc Messerole buy Don Talley a big, fat juicy hamburger!”
Doc mumbled some words which shall go unprinted in this column. Then he shuffled over to lean against the restaurant bar, all the while glaring at Dad (feigning hatred better than the finest actor at the Barter).
By the time Dad had drawn a crowd, his hamburger was ready. He proceeded to eat it with full relish, waving it every once in a while beneath Doc’s nose. “Don’t you at least want a whiff, Doc?”
Doc shook and trembled with mock rage (such marvelous acting . . . absolutely convincing). Then he announced for all to hear, “Now this low-down scoundrel named Don Talley and I will play each other on the back nine! And just like on the front nine, the loser has to buy the winner a hamburger! Agreed?”
“Agreed!” replied Dad.
Then Doc glared at Dad and said, “Come on, dead meat.”
Speaking of dead meat . . . on the next nine holes, Doc beat Dad so bad that he must have felt like freshly ground chuck. Just short of the restaurant door, Doc snatched Dad’s megaphone from his bag and bellowed loudly enough for every soul within half a mile to hear, “I just stomped Don Talley’s behind! Come watch him buy me a hamburger right now!”
Doc then waited for a crowd to form at the restaurant.
Meanwhile, while Dad leaned against the bar, I detected the hint of a mischievous grin creasing his face. (I’d seen that grin all too often. It told me Doc’s won bet was not as safe as he thought it was). Dozens of mutual friends surrounded Doc and Dad, when Dad suddenly grabbed me by the arm and turned for us to go.
Doc hollered out after us, “Stop, thief! Don Talley, you owe me a hamburger. We agreed to play for one on the back nine, just like on the front.”
Dad paused and dug his hand around in his pants pocket. (To build dramatic effect, I suppose, he then dug around in his other pocket.)
Then Dad pulled out a dime.
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